Kurai Tenshi
by Shikkoku Kiyoshi
Summary: Malin finds herself in the company of Epsilon, an assassin dealing with a bounty placed on his head by vengeful criminals. She wants to help him, but trying to get along with a cute but slightly off-kilter young man can be a struggle...
1. Epsilon

Disclaimer: SNKPlaymore owns KOF and it's characters. Epsilon belongs to this author, who, by the way, is horrifyingly poor, so don't bother pressing speed dial button for your lawyers, SNKP, cause I don't have shit.

Shikkoku: This story will be rated M for violence. Some sexual content too, but mostly violence. When you read the story, you'll understand what I mean.

* * *

_Kurai Tenshi: Keppaku_

_by Shikkoku Kiyoshi_

* * *

Malin was dead tired. 

Summer was here, but she was too bored to go anywhere. She had a rough day, and she wanted to go to a club or something, but it was too dark, she was too young, and she was too tired to dance right now. Dragging her small body in the house, up the stairs and to her room, she fell on her bed like a rock. Thump. Running a hand through her hair to let her ponytail loose, she pulled up the cover to her bed and relaxed. Slowly, her eyes started to get drowsy...

* * *

"Damn it all..." 

Somewhere else, a man with dark grey hair, limped through an alleyway, in the street. His body was covered with bullet wounds, and though most of them were not mortal, the blood was starting to soak through his shirt, leaving red stains all over it. He ran to the back of a convenience store after hearing footsteps.

"I'm up against a wall," he thought. "I'd wonder how I get myself into these things, but I already know why."

He needed to get to his safe house, and extract these bullets out of his body. But he needed some bandages first, so he zipped up his jacket to hide the blood-stained shirt that adorned his body, and prayed he didn't get caught.

The young man walked in the store, trying not to seem suspicious. Since this was a convenience store, and it was Friday, however, the clerk wouldn't notice him if he was on fire, brandishing a shotgun, and screaming profanities in Swedish.

He got the bandages, some food, and a bottle of water (he was going to be really hungry after he got done with his self-imposed surgery.) He went to pay for the food, but hadn't taken two steps, he was ambushed by a sea of ammunition. He hid behind a wall and managed to avoid getting shot again. 5 seconds later, it was all quiet. Knowing it was over, he decided to show himself. What he saw, was a line of gun-toting thugs. The whole store was wrecked, the cashier had vanished, and he was trapped. One of the thugs stepped forward.

"You're time is up." he said.

Epsilon just sighed. "Fool..."

"You've been running rampant all over our group. It's too much of a risk to let you live, even if there is a bounty on you head."

* * *

"Whatever..." 

The man grew frustrated by Epsilon's somewhat uncaring state. "Don't you understand? The game is over! You lost!"

"Don't worry," He grinned, "I'll reimburse you."

Black energy started to form in his hand. The adrenaline numbed the pain in his wounds, but he was too far gone to notice..

"Now..." Epsilon said, voice taking on a more confident tone. "I'll show you how a real assassin takes a life..."

* * *

Malin woke up a couple of hours later. She got up, took her skirt and shirt off, and wrapped herself up into a blanket. She went downstairs to the living room, and turned on the TV. She flipped thru the channels, till she found something that caught her eye. 

"_Reports say that 3 hours ago, gunshots were heard, and a man ran out, being followed by several other men. The man ran to safety, but 5 others were killed. Police has not figured out a motivation, but some say it was gang violence. But others say that the victim was shot a number of times before he got away."_

"Poor guy," Malin thought, snuggling into her blanket, "I hope he'll be okay."

* * *

Epsilon threw the last man down. The battle lasted for about 10 minuets, at which, he beat the crap out of everyone. He couldn't tell the dead from the comatose in the pile on the floor. The clerk had come out of the door and sat back down, not noticing or not caring about anything that just happened. All he could do was sigh. 

"It looks like another one of those nights..." Epsilon said, leaving the store after paying. "I hope this ends soon. I'm tired of getting shot at."

* * *

Shikkoku: (Sighs.) Finally, I have this thing uploaded. Now, I've been working on this thing since about 2004, and I am _hell-bent_ on getting this thing finished. This is probably the story I work the hardest on, or at least at the same rate with KOF:NB. Please let me know what you think. I'm not going to beg for reviews, but you could _try_ to tell me how I'm doing at the very least. (Looks at empty review box.) 

Speaking of which: Remember when I said that chapter 3 of that story would be bigger than the first 2 chapters combined? That's why it's taking such a long time. I learned my lesson about trying to put timetables on updates, but I will tell you that It's almost done.

As for this story, Next Chapter: Epsilon goes to the mall, where he runs into Malin, and they fight against a giant beetle shaped robot with a laser cannon. Just kidding.

Until next time.


	2. Walking Target

Shikkoku: I don't own The King of Fighters. I do own any original characters that appear in this and the plot of this story.

Nothing else to say but enjoy the story!

* * *

Kurai Tenshi: Keppaku 

By Shikkoku Kiyoshi

* * *

The mall. Usually a place for people to hang out, eat, spend ridiculous amounts of money on shit they don't need, and all around have fun. 

Malin, on the other hand, was bored to tears.

All of the people she usually hangs out with were on their stupid vacations. So she was walking around the mall alone, wishing something would happen. A riot, a fire, a robbery, a bomb threat, some excuse for her to take out her weapons and kick someone's ass. She never had much in the way of close friends. She made many in the two King of Fighter tournaments she participated in, but besides Kasumi Todoh and Hinako Shijou (who she considered her best friends), no one was very close to her. So she trudged across the mall's floor alone, seemingly looking for something to excite her.

Then she saw him.

A gray haired man, wearing a long jacket, and dark pants. But what caught her eyes was, the small spots of red that decorated he man's otherwise white shirt, and there were some holes that appeared in a few spots. He had a slight thing about the way he walked that made him look like he had been injured.

She thought back to the news report yesterday. They said that the victim was shot several times, but survived. Could he be who they were talking about?

Nah.

Why would he be at a place like the mall and not in the hospital like a normal human being would go after being shot.? Maybe he's one of those people that can get shot point blank and still live, like in the comics TV.

Her instinct told her to follow the man, hoping this would give her something fun to do, or at the very least, give her somebody to fight.

* * *

Epsilon had decided to take a pretty big risk and go to the mall. 

Of course, saying it was a 'pretty big' risk was a 'pretty big' understatement.

He had a bounty on his head. He was injured. There was too many possible collaterals' to risk having a massive battle there. Not to mention, he stuck out like a sore thumb wearing the_ exact same clothes he wore yesterday._

But the brand new light-shooter was out, and he _had_ to go to the arcade and play it.

For about _90 minutes_.

To him, it was something he needed to do to get his mind off of his situation.

"I must not care that much about being captured." he thought, "For all I know, I'm probably being followed right at this very moment." He turned around to see that no one was acting suspicious. "I don't think I should stay here. My wounds are still open, and I can't fight without re-injuring myself."

Epsilon walked casually to the exit in order not to make a scene, and walked through the lot, but he sensed someone behind him. He slowly turned his head around to look. She looked no younger than him, with long blond hair running past shoulders, brown eyes, wearing a reddish brown shirt, and a short white skirt. He tensed up, preparing to run like hell at the slightest sign of trouble.

"And how may I help you?" Epsilon said with a small smile, trying to be nice.

"May I ask you why your shirt looks so messed up?" The girl asked.

A slight relief came over Epsilon, since she wasn't a bounty hunter, but he couldn't afford more innocent victims, or more people wanting to cash him in. So he did what any smart man would do.

Lie.

"It's a design. It's a part of the shirt." He said, struggling to keep a straight face. "It's brand new, right out of the store."

The girl didn't buy it. "But they're on your jacket too."

"It's part of the set." Epsilon thought it might work.

"Your shirt has blood on it." The girl grinned. "Or is that part of the set too?"

Epsilon facefaulted. He wasn't very good at bullshitting his way out of situations anyway.

"So," the girl tapped the toe of her shoe on the ground. "Are you going to tell me the truth?"

The young boy frowned. "And what if I don't?"

The girl took out a large mallet. "I'll have to smash it out of you." She tied her hair with a bandana.

Epsilon sighed. He really didn't need a fight right now. But part of him was screaming for massive bloodshed. Girl or not, by the way she acted, she was another bounty hunter. And in his state, she was basically asking him to kill her.

"Okay, if you want to..."

He never got tofinish his sentence.

* * *

Malin was confused. 

One minute, this guy she was talking to was standing there, seemingly ready to fight, but after skillfully tying her bandana on her head, she was watching him get his face smashed into a windshield, by one guy and one girl. Obviously, she wasn't the only one interested in this boy, but this was getting confusing

"Would somebody tell me what the hell is going on?" She shouted.

The guy stopped punching him and walked up to Malin, look of concern on his face.

"Are you okay?" He said

"Huh?"

"My name is Alek," he said, Aand this is my partner is Tanna." Pointing to the girl currently slamming the door on Epsilon's ribs.

"Okay, Could you tell me what is going on?" Malin said, concerned with the young man that was on currently coughing.

Tanna walked up next to Alek. "This man is a murderer." she said, "He snatches small girls like you away and kills them."

Malin nodded, though she didn't really believe that 'story.' The boy didn't seem to be much interested in her until right before he was attacked.

"Uh...that's right! He kills people for fun." Alek stated, "He shot up that alley and robbed a store."

Epsilon tried to get up, but Tanna punched him again.

"If he's already down, why do you continue to hurt him?" The girl asked.

"Uh...he's a very resistant person. Won't stay down unless he's out cold."

"And how can he be the one who shot the man yesterday? The news said that there where six men that night?"

Tanna, who couldn't think of anything else punched Malin in the face. Alek, who didn't plan this, was upset.

"What the fuck!? Why the hell did you do that?"

"I had no choice. She was going to mess up our plan!" Tanna replied simply.

Alek just sighed. "Whatever. Now let's get the loser before he wakes up. With the money, we'll be long gone before she finds out."

But before they could even touch the guy, Malin had swung her giant mallet, and sent them flying across the street. Tanna managed to land somewhat on her feet while Alek landed on top of a car.

"That girl..." Alek coughed as he got up, drops of crimson blood leaked out of his mouth.

"No Alek," Tanna stated, carrying Alek on her shoulder. "You need medical attention. We'll stop now, and figure something out from there."

"Okay, thanks." Alek said, and he looked at Epsilon, "We'll be back! Bank on it!" And then they left.

Malin turned her attention to the man on the car. She shook him a couple of times, but he didn't respond.

"Are you okay?" she asked, half hoping he would say something. "Please, respond."

Epsilon slowly regained consciousness, and looked at the girl. "Well, I guess she's not one of 'them' after all." he thought.

"I'm about as okay as I can get." He said, getting off the car. "I'll assume you took care of those guys."

Malin nodded, wondering how he figured that out.

"Well, I would thank you," he heard police sirens, "But I have to go. Bye!" And he took off running. Epsilon took five steps and he collapsed on the side of the road.

Malin ran forward and helped him up. "Heh, thanks." The man said. "Being helped by such a pretty girl. I wish we had met under better terms."

He disappeared in the street. Malin blushed a bright red, but came back to reality in time to leave before the cops came.

* * *

Epsilon fell through the door of his temporary residence. After wrapping his ribs with gauze, and changing the bandages on his old wounds, he threw his jacket on a nearby chair and a card fell out of the pocket. He picked it up and read it. 

_There seems to be a lot more to you than what you are willing to say. If you ever get the balls to admit that you were the person that got assaulted yesterday, feel free to call me._

_Malin._

Epsilon sighed again. She knew about the incident, and she probably knew about the people trying to capture him. He _could_ ask her for her help, but she would probably wind up dead. He threw it in the trash.

"There's no need for innocent blood on my hands." Epsilon reasoned, before going into the kitchen for something to eat.

* * *

The first thing that Malin did when she got home was look up data about the young boy she met today, but there was nothing relating to him anywhere, and Malin had _lots_ of sources. 

What she _did_ find out, however, was that the number of criminal types who have been spotted in the area have risen considerably over the past two months.

If what happened earlier said anything, the boy is being hunted for some reason. It could be that someone is offering tons of money for his capture or death. But what Malin wanted to know was what did they want with a boy that didn't look like he was even out of high school yet?

She knew that there was more to this story than what mere reports could tell her, but the only person who knew was the boy himself. Malin was sure he got her note, but now, she wanted to see him more than ever. Was there a possibility of being caught up in a situation that was too much for even her? She didn't really know or care. The only thing she was concerned about was the grey-haired boy that she couldn't get out of her mind.

She didn't know if she could help him. She just wanted to see him again.

* * *

Shikkoku: It's late, but here's the second chapter. It's short, and it looks kinda iffy, but it's longer than the last chapter. Next chapter is when the story really starts. Nothing else much to say. 

Next Chapter: Epsilon and Malin meet again. Malin finally gets her questions answered. Of course, in the words of a certain someone, "Don't ask questions if you're not prepared for the answers."

Until next time.


	3. Dinner And A Gunshow

Shikkoku: The King of Fighters is not mine. Original characters are mine. Simple as that.

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Kurai Tenshi: Keppaku

By Shikkoku Kiyoshi

----------

Epsilon woke up the next day with a headache.

That couldn't have been a good sign; he knew it was time to leave his temporary hiding place. He got up, changed his bandages, packed the few things he had, and left.

He hadn't made it a few steps off the block when an entire floor of the building exploded.

"That's just great."

He decided to get something to eat, and then look for a new place to hide. So, he went to a little place in another part of town. His wounds had closed, but his ribs were still sore, so it hurt to walk for a while, but he made it without any other problems. Epsilon slid in his booth and waited for a waiter.

"It feels good to relax once in a while." He said the cushion heaven on his sore ribs. "Hopefully soon, I will be able to sit through a whole meal without getting hurt."

The waiter handed him his menu, and he looked through all the tasty things he could eat.

----------

Malin was having a terrible time right now.

She was wandering around town, looking for some boy that she only knew for five minutes, hopefully to get a good idea about what happened two days ago. Basically, she was trying to stick her nose into something that was not her business for reasons Malin herself couldn't understand. The problem with that is without any other information to go by, finding him was virtually impossible. He was obviously on the run and that made things even harder.

Walking past a burning apartment complex, Malin contemplated about giving up and going back home. But the allure of that young man was too much for her.

"What is it about him that makes me so determined?" Malin thought. "Maybe it's my desire to try and do the right thing. Or maybe is because he was cute."

The thought of putting her life at risk just because she thought a boy was cute made Malin shudder, so she assumed it was the former idea. She heard a horrific growl coming from her stomach.

"How embarrassing." She muttered, deciding that food was in order.

After another minute or so, she arrived at a small restaurant. Gazing into the windows, Malin saw all of the people eating their food, some neatly, most like pigs. Then she saw him.

There he was, the boy from yesterday sitting down to a table, looking at a menu, trying not to salivate at the various foods he saw.

"He's here!" Malin stared. "Why would he be out here of all places? Isn't he supposed to be injured?" Her confused look turned into a small smile. She would not bother pondering stuff like that. "I think this is a good time to have a talk with him. Besides, lunch with a cute boy like him isn't exactly a bad idea."

----------

Epsilon was still mulling over the menu. "I think that steak would be good. Yes, it looks very tasty." Closing the menu, he started to drink his soda. His headache was now a very light pain, and he had an easier time breathing. He wondered why it was taking longer than usual to heal up, but he figured all the action over the past few days didn't give his wounds time to do their work properly.

"I need to get a new plan working." Epsilon thought to himself. "This has to end soon, or I might not survive. The situation must resolve itself cleanly and quickly."

Suddenly he heard a knocking on the window he was sitting by. Turning to look at the window, he saw her. It was that girl from yesterday. Wearing a white and sky blue version of the outfit she wore yesterday, she smiled and waved at him. Epsilon shrank in his seat.

"She probably want to extract' more information from me." He thought, looking at the girl, grinning at him through the window. AWhat in the hell did I do to deserve this?"

"Okay, That's a very dumb question. But still..." The girl was gone. Epsilon knew that she was coming to sit with him, and sighed. "I'm guessing that she won't leave till I explain everything to her, so I have no choice. Maybe if she knew the truth, she'll back away." Closing his eyes, he smiled. "It won't be that bad, she is pretty cute."

----------

Malin walked in the door of the restaurant, and went to the booth that the boy was in. She sat down across from him. He looked at her and she noticed that they were a pale silver, which kinda creeped her out. Was there anything about this boy that _was_ normal?

"By your expression, I can tell you got my message." She said. Epsilon just nodded. "So, do you think you could please tell me what is going on with everyone trying to kill you?"

"No," Epsilon said. "Not yet."

Malin shook her head. "Can you at least tell me your name?"

He guessed it was safe. "Epsilon."

Malin frowned. Even his _name_ was strange. "That's Greek, right?"

"I was born in Greece, but I'm Japanese. It was pretty strange when I was young." Epsilon snickered. "I used to think it was the worst name in the world."

"I think it's rather unique."

"Thank you," the young boy tried not to blush, "But please, call me Eli."

"Why?"

"Because that's what my mom called me, and I prefer to be referred by that." Epsilon sighed. "Besides, I haven't learned your name yet."

"Malin."

"That's a very cute name."

Epsilon watched Malin turn red.

"It's almost as cute as you."

Malin turned even redder. "Thank you." She said quietly.

Epsilon got another menu, and handed it to Malin. "I'm guessing that you're harder to get rid of, than most of the people that are looking for me."

"You could say that." The girl answered, looking at the spicy soups they had in the menu. They sounded absolutely delicious.

"Well," Epsilon thought it over. "I hope I don't regret this, but since you're going to find out anyway sooner than later since your getting involved, do you wanna hear the long, sad, tragic story of how I got into this mess?"

"Yes, please tell me." Malin pulled herself out of

The young boy sighed again, and prepped himself.

"I am an assassin."

Malin just looked at him.

"Really. I work as a freelance assassin."

Silence.

"You don't believe me, do you?"

Malin smiled nervously. "Of course I do! I was…uh…letting it sink in!"

Eli ignored her. "I rather not get into my past, but I was placed in this position due to something very tragic. It wasn't my decision, but I had no other choice. I have no regrets about anything I have done."

The waiter came by and took their orders, Epsilon waiting till he left to continue.

"But a few months ago, I got caught up in a situation. Apparently, someone has put out a lot of cash on my life for some weird reason. I think it has to do with someone I killed a while back, I don't know. Anyway, everywhere I go, people have been coming out of the woodwork to try to get me. It's was annoying at first, but now that I have been actually shot, it's starting to get worrisome. Being that close to death doesn't really appeal to me."

Malin was astonished, this was more than she expected. "Why don't you tell somebody?" She asked.

"I'm not exactly the noblest person in the world; I can't risk getting thrown in jail, I have a life to live and someone to protect. I want to end this soon, so I can get back to my normal life."

The waiter gave them the food, and Eli was surprised when Malin started gulping down her meal like water. He ate his steak in a more normal fashion. "Are you afraid of me?"

Malin swallowed her soup. "Why would you think that?"

"Because I'm, by your standards, a murderer, and you must be very pure hearted if you helped me yesterday." He pointed at her with his knife, which made Malin nervous. "No one want to be around someone with as much blood on his hands as me."

Epsilon noticed that the waiter was on the phone, talking to someone. His senses told him that it wasn't normal talk, by the way the waiter wasn't trying to look at the customers. The rest of the meal went by normally. But at the end, Epsilon saw the waiter pocket something, and he knew what was going to happen next. The waiter walked to them, trying to look as casual as possible.

Without notice, Epsilon jumped up, grabbed the man by the neck, and dragged him to his table. The waiter was shocked. He didn't know that he figured out the plan, but he couldn't really ask, because Epsilon had started to smash his face into the table.

"Leave! me! the! #$! Alone!" He said, saying each word as he smashed the poor man's face another time. Finally, he stopped, letting the man's face slide of the table, his face bleeding. Epsilon looked at the shock on Malin's face and sighed.

"I'm sorry." He muttered, "I got to go."

He made his way to the door, only to hear something loud. The something sharp hit his shoulder, but he didn't seem to know or care. The whole building was silent. He turned around and looked at the man who had a still smoking gun in his hand, his face was blank, but his eyes seemed to shine with a sadistic light. Then, slowly, his mouth turned to a smirk.

"I got to commend you," he said, in a voice more casual than usual for someone who just been shot, "It's not everyday that someone is actually brave enough to use firearms on me. That was really a good effort, considering you probably couldn't get a clear view. But I'm afraid you'll have to pay the price."

Epsilon snapped his fingers, and a small, black flicker of energy leapt out. It skittered across the tile floor and got on the man's leg. Soon it started to spread all over the man's body. It felt like fire, even though it wasn't burning anything. He started to scream, hoping Epsilon would stop the pain.

Epsilon started to laugh softly. He liked it when they screamed in pain. It felt so good to watch that man suffer; it's been awhile since he had_ killed_ someone. But he knew that it wouldn't really matter if he died or not, so he snapped his fingers again, and the black energy was gone. The man's screaming ceased immediately.

He looked back at Malin, who had a look that he couldn't possibly describe, but he knew she probably hated him now. Epsilon immediately returned to reality. The part of him he didn't want her to see showed itself...

He walked out of the restaurant, and didn't look back.

----------

Malin couldn't believe what happened.

Epsilon went from shy, friendly guy to bloodthirsty psycho to shy, friendly guy in a matter of minutes. the waiter' was a wreck on the floor, being attended to by police and paramedics. The table had blood where his face was smashed, and the man had burn marks from, well, whatever that thing was.

She had to walk across the table so not to get in the way of the medics. Malin left the restaurant, and ran, hoping to find Epsilon. She came to a bridge, and Epsilon was watching the water flow in the river below. She didn't have to say anything; Epsilon already knew she was there. "Eli…"

"That thing you saw earlier," He said, not looking at her. "I don't know what it is or where it comes from. It's a power I had for awhile, and I'm still learning how to master it."

The clouds started to form above him, covering the sun up.

"After a while, I started to get to the point where I had lost the original reason of me being an assassin. It became more of a reason to feed my desire for suffering like I had suffered. It wasn't so much of a chore when I was first starting out, as it was starting to become fun to me."

It started to rain.

"I still, however, refuse to kill anyone I don't see fit to die. But I'm slowly starting to lose sight of the line between assassination and murder. It eats at me as I run around, trying to figure how to get things back to normal. Is it worth throwing my life away?"

Malin stepped closer to him. "You're suffering, are you?"

"For the last 3 months, yes."

The rain poured down harder. Epsilon stared at the sky.

"I want to live somewhat normally, but I can't escape the assassin part of me that wants to kill, so that's why I sometimes snap, like what just happened at that place. I still enjoy the suffering, and the killing, but I know that I have to keep that part of me under control. That's why I don't want you to get involved, Malin. They'll make sure your life ends up painful like mine."

Epsilon turned to look at Malin; his eyes were now a silverish blue.

"Now, are you afraid of me?"

Malin walked over to next to him, and brushed the damp hair out of his eyes. "No."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I just don't fear you." She looked away, "I know I'm taking a big risk, but hopefully you won't say no."

Epsilon smiled to himself. Something felt different this time. "What is it?"

Malin looked at the platinum haired man. "Do you have anywhere to stay?"

"I did, but it just blew up."

Malin decided not to ask. "Why don't you stay at my place?"

Epsilon was surprised. "Are you sure?"

"I don't want you walking around in the cold rain. That's the least I can do."

Epsilon got off the railing. He didn't really have a choice. What could go wrong? Well, besides Malin getting killed? This could be a good chance to catch his breath and come up with a new strategy.

Putting his hands in his pockets, he smiled. "I'll accept your offer. Lead the way, Malin."

The girl smiled and took his arm, dragging him off the bridge, and into the alleys to avoid questioning from the police.

-----------

Shikkoku: First things first, don't give me any reviews complaining about Eli's past being too dreary or that the story is getting too 'emo', cause I bet most of you don't even really know what that word _actually means._ You just throw it around at anything that has even a smidgen of emotional content in it. Secondly, I've been up and down this thing for a week, and I'm still a little uneasy with this chapter, but since I don't really see anything wrong both story-wise or grammar-wise, I decided to post this.

Eli's power: I'm still working on it. It's not fire, it's not a curse and it's not going to be very important till we get to the first fight, which won't be for a chapter or two. But what it does might be kinda bizarre…

New Blood will be updated soon. I've been busy this weekend and haven't had time to work on it. It'll be a short chapter anyway, as the chapter after that will have the second round match.

But I've been rambling on enough. Next Chapter: Eli finds himself staying with Malin, and decides to make the most of it.

Until next time.


	4. Semblance of a Normal Life

Disclamer Time!

Shikkoku: I do not own The King of Fighters or it's various assortments of weirdoes. If I did, I would make it my business that Athena Asamiya never sings on any form of media again.

Athena: HEY!

Shikkoku: Oh, hush. I like you, I just don't like those glass-shattering atrocities you call songs. (Ducks a Psycho Ball.)

Athena: I don't need you! I got plenty of fans who appreciate my music! (Stomps off.)

Shikkoku: (Sighs) Whatever. Enjoy the story.

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Kurai Tenshi: Keppaku

By Shikkoku Kiyoshi

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Malin and Epsilon entered the house, both soaked to the bone with rain.

"I'm sorry I got you wet." Malin said, removing her wet shoes.

"AIt's okay," Epsilon said, throwing his jacket on the floor. "When you're like me, you get used to working in all sorts of crappy weather."

Looking around the house, he noticed that there was no one else there. "Where are your parents?"

"They're gone on a little trip." Malin smiled. "They're gone most of the time." She took a picture of them out of her wallet. The father was a tall man, blond hair tied to a ponytail like her. He wore black clothing and had an huge grin on his face. Her mother was a black-haired woman who wore a warm smile and was flashing a 'V' sign at the camera. Epsilon sighed. They were just like his own parents.

Malin noticed the look in his eyes. "Why don't you go to the bathroom and dry off?"

Epsilon nodded and went up the stairs to her bathroom. He walked in expecting pink crap all over the walls and candles and designer soaps. Luckily, he only found white tiles and normal soaps. Removing his shirt, he noted that the bullet had hit an already bandaged area, which cut the blood flow. Epsilon redressed his wounds with bandages, even thought they were starting to heal nicely. He wrapped them in a way that they wouldn't peek through clothing.

"Yo." Malin called from the other side. "Do you think you could give me your shirt, so I can wash it?"

"Sure."

Malin opened the door just in time to see Epsilon throwing his old bloody bandages away. Most of his upper body was covered with bandages, but she could see some skin. His work gained him a slight outlining of muscles. He didn't exactly have a movie star physique, but she was liking what she saw.

Malin wanted to slap herself. What in the heck was doing peeping on some guy in the bathroom? She sure wouldn't like it if Eli was trying to check her out without her notice. Or would she…

"Is that bullet still in your arm?" She asked in a desperate attempt to change the subject before her nose started bleeding. Epsilon nodded. "Then come to my room, and I'll take it out for you."

Epsilon hesitated, but Malin had already yanked him out of the bathroom and Epsilon found himself in her bedroom, on her bed, watching Malin get her supplies ready. She walked out with some alcohol. She dabbed it on his wound, and Epsilon seethed.

"Don't worry, you won't feel a thing..." She took out a switchblade. "Until I shove this into your shoulder."

---------

Five excruciatingly painful minutes later, Malin took the bullet out. Epsilon lay there, staring at the floor, while his wound was being wrapped up.

"How did you find a person like me?" Epsilon asked.

"I heard the news talk about a shooting. When I saw you at the mall, I put two and two together and figured it out. Wasn't really that hard."

Eli laughed. "I know that it was a bit too obvious, but I there was this new game at the arcade…"

"You risked your life so you could play a video game?" Malin frowned. "Some assassin you are."

"What do you expect? I'm only seventeen years old." Eli rolled on his back.

Malin nearly fell off of the bed. "YOU'RE ONLY SEVENTEEN?!?! What kinda parents would let their kids do that?!"

"The kind of parents that have an assassin background themselves." Eli stated coldly. "Besides, even if they did have objections, it wouldn't matter, because my father and mother are _**DEAD**_."

Malin swallowed nervously. She had pissed Eli off thanks to her big mouth. "Sorry…"

Eli sighed. "It's alright. I just don't like talking about it."

Malin gave a relieved smile and rummaged through her closet for a second before pulling out a sleeping bag.

"Since you're hurt, you can sleep on the bed while I sleep in this flimsy bag." she grinned.

Epsilon fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. Malin laid back and stared at the ceiling till sleep claimed her as well.

---------

The smell of a fresh breakfast woke Epsilon out of his sleep. He was sore enough that it took a couple of minutes for him to get out of the bed. After dragging himself to the bathroom, he stripped off all his bandages. Though the bleeding had mostly stopped, the wounds were still fresh, and he was still sore. Still, he felt better than two days ago, when he had to remove the bullet himself.

"The things I do..." Epsilon shook his head while reaching for fresh bandages. He wrapped them around his upper body. As soon as he was done, he went downstairs.

---------

Malin didn't hear Epsilon come down the stairs. As she made him breakfast, the assassin sat down and decided to get a good look at her. She was still wearing the same stuff she wore the last time. Did she ever take them off, or are there multiple versions of the same one? Malin stretched and looked at him.

"Good morning, Epsilon." she said with a sunny tone. "I fixed you some stuff to eat."

The assassin looked at the food she placed in front a him. It looked edible enough. He gulped it down without hesitation. Malin blinked. "You're pretty hungry."

"I didn't eat much this week." He smiled.

"Well, you'll need some new clothes, so I'm glad you're ready." Malin leaned over and smiled "You probably stink as well. Please wash up."

Epsilon got up and went to the shower. As he turned on the water, the wounds littered on his body stung. He washed, trying not to get blood all over the floor. After a while, he washed his hair, with some of the shampoo he found, till it was a nice shiny silver. Eli thought briefly about dying his hair a more normal color, but decided to worry about that at a different time.

---------

After he was done and dressed, Malin dragged him to the mall. Epsilon was wary, but she assured him that nothing would happen. She sent him off to pick his own clothes (much to the Eli's relief), and he went to the first store that caught his eye.

"The assassin must always remain in the shadows, only appearing to kill, then go back into the darkness."

Those words struck a cord with him. He always wondered if he can truly live normally. But he didn't need to think about things like that now. Epsilon saw a shirt that caught his eye. It had two colors, a black base, and white lines covering it, sort of like a grid of circuits with no point of origin. He grabbed it immediately, and set off to look at the other clothes in the store. Pretty soon, he had a fair amount off nice stuff to wear.

After paying, he took off to look for Malin. But he didn't know where she went, so he decided to sneak off to the arcade. The sounds of gunfire and screaming filled the air, and Epsilon was salivating at the new gun games they had.

"Bullet Zone 3! I heard about this game!" he nearly fell over trying to get to the cabinet. He loved the light gun styled games as he though of them as practice for his skills, the many styles of guns they had was good for learning how to deal with different weapons, and the many enemies was good for high pressure situations when you have to plow through an entire gang to leave a building. Assassin's blood ran through his veins, and he couldn't escape from their calling.

The first level started, and Epsilon got his senses ready. As soon as the first enemies came out, he started take each and everyone down. They didn't have a chance, as he seemed to shoot them as soon as they came out of hiding. Every bullet hit their target, no matter how they tried to evade, or hide. The kids were astonished by the fact that the young boy was killing enemies like he played the game before, even though it was installed just today. The levels passed, Epsilon's score got higher, and before he knew it, he was at the final boss. The assassin didn't seem to care about the high level of difficulty that was rumored about defeating the boss, and was quick to point out all his weak points. The whole arcade. Amid the clapping, he saw Malin smiling at him.

"I shouldn't be surprised." she said, taking Epsilon out of the crowd.

"You must be prepared for ambush. There's always a chance that the enemy is one step ahead of you, so you must be one step ahead of them." He rubbed his hair. "That's a rule I live by."

"Why did you get shot, then?"

Epsilon just glared at her.

---------

Malin decided to take Epsilon to a movie. Unfortunately, she unknowingly chose a tacky, unoriginal movie, and they were bored to tears.

"I appreciate you doing this," Epsilon whispered. ABut this movie sucks."

"I know." Malin yawned. "I'm going to sleep. Wake me when it's over." She slumped in her seat.

Epsilon noticed some suspicious people talking down the row. Not wanting to ruin the good mood that he was in, he snuck up on them, and was greeted by 2 barrels. But the men were too scared to fire.

"Tsk, Tsk, Tsk." He shook his head. "You just don't get it." A dark smile formed on his face.

"I'll just have to burn it in your mind..."

It only lasted about three minutes. Afterwards, he went back up and finished watching the last of the movie.

"Malin, the movie's over."

The girl slowly woke up, and fell off her seat.

"Ow!" she rubbed her butt. Epsilon helped her up. "Thanks."

"It's no problem." A blank look crossed his eyes.

"What's wrong?"

The assassin shook his head. "Nothing. I just got a little distracted."

They left, not noticing the traces of smoke that was rising a few seats below.

---------

"So you were in the King of Fighters?"

The duo was resting under a tree in Malin's back yard when Eli had asked the question.

"Absolutely!" Malin jumped up. "I've competed twice before."

"And by the lack of any trophies, You lost twice before as well." Eli commented. Malin stomped on his injured shoulder. "OW!"

"Serves you right." She muttered. "Anyway, do you know any fighting skills?"

"I do know some." The assassin got up. "You can't kill people with weapons alone, you have to have some physical skill to go along with it or you'll end up in a bad situation."

Stretching, Malin followed him back to the house and up to her room, where Eli noticed the giant mallet that sat in the corner of her room. "What's with that?"

"I got it custom made for me by my parents." Malin beamed, taking the weapon and hugging it. "I love it so much! It's my pride an joy."

"I don't see how using a heavy, unwieldy hammer is very effective in a tournament. You obviously have been reading too many mangas." Eli stated.

"I'm tempted to smash you across the neighborhood, but I'll just tell you that my hammer is lighter than you would think."

Eli hmphed and went downstairs. "Whatever. Now if you excuse me, I have to go do some things."

Malin nearly tripped down the steps. "WHAT! Are you nuts?! You're still hurt!"

"Don't worry your pretty blond head off. I'm just going to take care of some things in a part of the town that has a bigger police presence, so I'm less likely to get hurt."

"Why can't I go with you?" Malin tugged at his sleeve, but the look Eli gave her quickly stopped that.

"It's my problem. Let me handle it on my own." He said with a slight coldness, before walking out the door. Malin fumed.

"JERK!" she shouted at the closed door. "Go ahead and get yourself killed, asshole! See if I care!"

"I can still hear you behind this door." Eli stated. "Such dirty language. What would your parents think?"

"SHUT UP!"

----------

Shikkoku: Another short chapter. It's longer than the last one, but still…

_Notes:_

_Since nobody knows jack shit about Malin's past, I decided to make up a family for her._

_Expect Hinako and Kasumi Todoh to make an appearance next chapter._

_Also expect a fight next chapter too. Between who exactly? Who knows._

----------

Shikkoku: Alright, Next Chapter…(Gets hit by a Shining Crystal Bit.)

Athena: That ought to teach you to make fun of me!

Shikkoku: (Rubs head in pain.) I'm sorry, okay? I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.

Athena: (Smiles) It's okay, I'm not angry anymore anyway.

Shikkoku: Good. Now let me finish the chapter…

Next Chapter: Eli finds another person wanting to cash him in, and what happens to that person isn't very pretty. And there's a fight too!

Shikkoku: That reminds me, you need to get ready. The Psycho Soldiers have a big fight coming up too.

Athena: Really? I gotta get ready! TELEPORT! (Disappears.)

Shikkoku: (Sighs before smiling and waves) Keep a look out for the next chapter of New Blood too! Until next time, Bye bye!


	5. Revenga

Shikkoku Kiyoshi makes no claim of ownership to the King of Fighters characters used in this story. They are the sole possession of SNKPlaymore. If he did, none of the games will ever come out on time.

Not that SNKP doesn't do the same thing, anyway….

----------

Kurai Tenshi: Keppaku

By Shikkoku Kiyoshi

----------

"Excuse me ma'am, but do you know if a man named Miyazaki is here?"

Eli had snuck into a restaurant a mile from Malin's house. It was a small place with smooth jazzy music playing from the ceiling. Eli started to get a little hungry, but he knew he had work that needed to be done.

After he was attacked yesterday, he remembered someone named Miyazaki being mentioned in his attacker's phone call right before he tried (and failed) to kill Eli. When he went back to his mental archives of clients and victims, he remembered someone who went by that name. He also remembered that he came to this restaurant on a regular basis.

"Oh, you just missed him." The host said. "He left just a second ago."

"I see." Eli said, faking a sincere tone. "Well, thank you very much."

Leaving the building, he spotted Miyazaki's car leaving the lot. Eli ran a few steps, before stopping quickly. He couldn't be seen running after a car, it'll look to weird. Eli needed to take his time. Since he knew where Miyazaki already lived anyway, he would walk there, giving him time to think out a plan.

He was a assassin, after all, and assassins must be patient.

An hour later, he was on the door step of Miyazaki's medium-sized home. Surprisingly, there wasn't any security around. No cameras, no bodyguards, no dogs, nothing. Apparently, Miyazaki felt that Eli was too much of a walking target to try and follow him here.

"Overconfident jackass." He thought to himself before he jumped the large gate and snuck across the grass.

He wandered for a bit, till he found a window that had been open, most likely to cool the house down. Eli silently slipped through the window, and into the house.

----------

Apparently, Miyazaki had dozed off a bit and decided to take a short nap. Eli was standing over him, wondering what evil things to do to him. Deciding that he needed to at least see if he had some information on the bounty on his head, he decided not to just kill him. Instead, he grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and flung him into the closest wall he could see, which just so happened to have a mirror hanging on it.

"Did that wake you up?" Epsilon said, stalking over to the fallen man.

"How did you find me?" He said, still groggy.

"You're not hard to find, remember?" He grinned. "I haven't forgotten you, and your little attempt on my life."

"So you figured it out?" Miyazaki said. "What can I say? Money is money. It was too good an opportunity to pass up." He stood up, noting that he wasn't injured too much. "You should of known that there is always a risk of betrayal for assassins."

"Yeah, whatever." Eli creeped closer. "Since you are so eager to claim a bounty, tell me who posted it."

"Hmph. No one really knows. I overheard some people talking about it, and decided to throw my hat in."

Eli sighed at the lack of any new information. "I guess that pans out." He said. "Now, to deal with you…"

"Why would you want to kill me? I could have vital information for you, or know someone who could tell you who placed that bounty on your head."

"That is true, but I would rather not leave any 'loose ends', so to speak. Besides, I wasn't able to kill your so-called 'hitman'." Eli grabbed him by the throat. "And I'm feeling a little melancholy for a good old-fashioned assassination right now. Sure I'm not getting paid for my actions, but ending your life will at least give me a brief resemblance of normalcy."

And with that, Eli's fist came into contact with Miyazaki's stomach. As the man bent over in pain, his attacker grabbed his arm. With a slight twist, Eli dislocated the shoulder. He smiled to himself as Miyazaki dropped to his hands and knees, before getting a boot to the side of his head.

"You know what's sad about all this?" Eli sat on top of Miyazaki's back. "You have a lot of enemies, you know. This was bound to happen sooner than later." Eli smiled as the familiar black energy formed an aura like state around him. "Unfortunately, you got the short end of the stick with me."

----------

Malin had been sitting on her couch watching TV when she heard the door open. Looking behind her, she saw Eli walking in. She noticed that his clothes and parts of his face had was looked like blood splattered on it. She also noticed he was carrying a large box.

"What the hell happened to you?!" She asked. Eli just smiled.

"Just a little scuffle. Don't worry, I'm okay." Eli patted her head. "But I do need to take another shower though." He went up the stairs.

Malin scoffed. "Patting my head like I'm a dog." She said as she rubbed her hair, before she noticed that it was kinda wet. Pulling her hand to her face, she noticed it was covered with blood. Panicking, she rushed to the kitchen and washed the offending hand.

"Crapcrapcrapcrap!" she said to himself. "He must have gone and killed someone!"

Ding Dong!

It was the doorbell. After quickly putting on her bandana to hide the blood, she answered the door.

"Hi Malin!"

It was Hinako Shijou, her good friend from KOF, wearing a pink blouse and a long white skirt. If you looked at her, you wouldn't think she was a talented sumo expert.

The two friends hugged tightly. "It's so good to see you again." Malin replied. "How is everything?"

"Everything is going fine." Hinako said. "I was just coming over to see you, and look who I ran into on the way there…"

The sumo girl moved aside to reveal Kasumi Todoh, wearing what seemed to be a dress.

"Hello Malin." She said softly, while giving a look that said 'Say anything about my clothes and I'll break your arm in three places.'

"Hey Kasumi. Why don't the two of you come in for a moment?" Malin let them in, forgetting that Eli was upstairs showering. They sat down in the living room…

----------

After a long, hot shower Epsilon picked up his clothes and threw them in the laundry basket.

He noted to himself that If he was going to stay with Malin, he would have to keep his murderous intent in check, if not for staining his new clothes with blood, then to spare the poor girl from thinking that she had let a psychopath into her home. If he kept acting like this, Malin might kick him out.

Yawning, he got dressed again, but Eli noticed that his shirt was missing. He remembered that his new clothes were stashed somewhere downstairs. Part of him was wary for some reason, but he just shook it off and went downstairs.

----------

"So how's thing's going Kasumi?" Malin asked. "Have you heard from Ejii?"

"I haven't heard from him in a while…" Kasumi answered. "But then again, he's a ninja, so he could be anywhere."

"Wow!" Hinako gave her usual starry-eyed look, "You got to team with a real life ninja! What was it like?" 

Malin was about to answer when she saw Eli walking down the stairs. Which wouldn't have been so bad if he had his shirt on.

"I have to go to the bathroom right quick…" Malin almost jumped over her friends, and pushed Eli before Kasumi and Hinako saw him.

"Hey!" Eli said as Malin shoved him out the kitchen to the back hall. "What's going on?"

"Why are you walking around without a shirt on?" Malin said in a low voice. "Don't you see that I have friends here?"

"I noticed that." Eli rubbed the back of his neck. "I figured since they were girls, that it wouldn't be a big deal."

Malin just sighed. "It is when you don't feel like explaining why you have a half-naked boy walking around the house." She gave Eli a gentle push down the hall. "Your clothes are just around that corner."

Eli glared at her for a bit before leaving while Malin returned to her friends.

"Sorry about that." She smiled apologetically.

"Who was that you were talking to?" Kasumi asked.

Malin facefaulted. "You heard us?"

"My hearing has to be sharp, that is something my father taught me." Kasumi frowned. "Are you hiding a boy in your house?"

"NO!" Malin said a little too loudly. "Er…I mean…I'm not hiding him, he's a friend…"

"YOU MEAN YOU GOT YOURSELF A BOYFRIEND?!?" Hinako said excitedly.

"HE'S JUST A FRIEND!" Malin shouted. "He's just staying here for the moment. He's in…uh…a bit of a snag."

"You mean he's some kind of criminal?" Kasumi asked, looking ready to jump up and go after the mysterious houseguest.

"Dammit Kasumi! He's having some trouble at home." Malin was trying to keep herself calm. "So he's here to stay for a bit."

It was about that time that Eli came in to the room, thankfully wearing a shirt. When Hinako saw him, she 'meeped' a bit before looking away. Kasumi, being the ever-vigilant girl she was, looked at the silver haired boy a suspiciously.

"Hello everyone," Eli said in a friendly tone. "My name is Eli, and I'm staying here for a bit."

"How do I know I can trust you?" Kasumi said apprehensively. "How do I know you're not going to take advantage of Malin when she's asleep or anything."

Eli shook his head and smiled nervously. "Don't worry. She's just a friend of mine. Besides, she's a little too short for me."

He could feel a wave of murderous intent flare up as Malin grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and dragged him back to where they was just a minute ago. A minute later, Malin came back alone, exceedingly more happy than when she left.

----------

Eli laid on the grass of Malin's backyard, staring at the slightly cloudy sky. After the blond girl had gave him the riot act, he had decided to stay outside until the girls where done talking. Of course, that had been an hour ago.

"Eliiii…" Malin sang as she walked through the back door. "They're gone."

Epsilon was about to get up when Malin sat on his chest.

"Epsilon," Malin got close enough that their foreheads touched. "What happened when you left?" 

Eli sighed. "I found that person who hired that guy to attack me yesterday." He said. "I followed him home, and…"

"You killed him." Malin said quietly.

"Kinda of understatement. I _executed_ him to be exact. His men probably already found him lying on the floor, his vital fluids staining that oh-so expensive carpet of his, and some of his possessions missing."

Malin blinked. "So you killed this guy, and stole some of his stuff?"

"Yep. He won't be needing it." Eli laughed his evil laugh.

"And you enjoyed it?"

"Every moment. I had to let out some stress somehow."

Malin just stared at him. "I never you could get so bloodthirsty…"

"What's wrong?" Eli asked. "Are you starting to have second thoughts about me staying here?"

"No…It's just…I'm not used to someone who could take one's life without a second though." 

"Are you afraid?"

Malin shook her head.

"I didn't want you to see such things. That's why you couldn't go with me." Eli gently pushed her off of him. "But you don't have to be afraid of me, I promise I will not hurt you, or let you get hurt as long as I'm here."

Malin just stood up. "Thank you, Eli."

Eli scratched the back of his neck again. "Since you're not doing anything right now, how about you spar with me a little bit?"

Malin blinked. "Why would you want to do that?"

"I'm just curious about how you fight." Eli tilted his head slightly to the right.

Malin smiled her usual bright smile. "In that case, wait a moment." She ran into the house. Five minutes later, she came running out, seemingly unchanged from before. "Okay, I'm ready."

"Fine then."

Eli shifted into his primary stance as Malin started running towards him. He dodged her first attack with ease, noticing what was in her hand…

"A knife?!" Eli thought. He could see several strands of hair fall from his face. "What kind of fighting style does this girl practice?"

Malin jumped all over the place, so poor Eli couldn't properly defend against her attacks. After a two minutes, he had cuts in a few places and been tasered in the back.

"Nya nya!" Malin taunted. "You can't keep up with me!"

"Hmph. We'll see."

Eli quickly swung his hand in a upward motion, sending a thin, black, sharp blade of energy towards the girl, who ducked just in time.

"What the hell?!" Malin said, before dodging another one.

Eli smiled inwardly at his turning the tide of the match. In a few steps, he was right next to Malin.

All the blonde girl saw was a flash and she was sent flying into her fence, which or unfortunately wasn't very flexible. "Ow…"

Malin struggled to get to her feet, but in the minute she got herself together, something sharp grazed her arm.

Malin got a good look at it. It was a dark gray spike, attached to a chain with what seemed to be thorns on certain parts. The entire weapon stood at a 45 degree angle from the ground where it came out of for a few seconds before going limp, falling to the grass and disappearing into the hole it made a few seconds ago.

Looking across from her, Malin saw Eli drag the chained spike up out of the ground.

"I guess I went a little too far." Eli said as the weapon dissolved into that familiar black energy. "I didn't hurt you too bad, did I?"

"Just a small cut on my arm." Malin smiled. "I've had worse. How did you do that with your weird powers?"

"I don't know. I'm still trying to figure out the workings of this thing out." Eli called the black energy into his hand again. "From what I've figured out, it's some kind of technique. I heard rumors that it's draws power from some sort of negative emotion and that the color differs from person to person. It just so happens that mine is black."

Malin tilted her head to the side. "Does it hurt to use it?"

"Actually, it feels like...well, I can't describe it, I just know it feels good. Kinda like the feeling someone gets when they do drugs for the first time, only it doesn't go away."

Malin didn't really want to know what went through Epsilon's head on a constant basis. "So, do you want to continue?"

Eli retuned to fighting position. "Okay. Make me burn."

----------

After an hour, they were worn out from fighting, and they returned to the house. Malin, taking of her bandana, noticed that she still had the blood of whoever Eli killed in her hair, so she decided to wash it.

Eli, however, had laid himself down on the couch downstairs and went about catching his breath while planning his next course of action.

"What do I do now?" he thought. "Maybe if I stay low for a while, people will think somebody got me and they'll stop looking for me. Then it'll be safer for me to go out and look for the person who put the bounty on me."

Epsilon looked at one of the many cuts he sustained during the fight. It would probably be gone by the end of tomorrow. He started to doze off a bit, but Malin, like always, popped out of nowhere.

"I have a favor to ask you." She said, still drying her long blond hair.

"I'm listening."

"Hinako and Kasumi wanted me to go out with them. But I'm a little worried that somebody might try to hurt me…"

"You're perfectly capable of defending yourself." Eli said flatly. "Why would you want me to be a fifth wheel in your party?"

"They don't seem to have any qualms about you coming with us. Kasumi gets suspicious with pretty much everyone she meets for the first time, but she and Hinako are very actually kind and welcoming." She bent over to get a better look at his face. "Besides, don't you want to have a bit of fun after all that suffering you went through?"

Eli gave a sigh. "Well, considering my options, I don't really have much else to do for the time being, so I'll come along with you, just don't involve me with any of your girly activities, okay?"

"Fine." Malin went back upstairs. "We'll be leaving in a few hours, so don't sleep too long."

Eli gave a short laugh to himself before dozing back off. This was only the first day here, and already it was going to be a unforgettable one.

----------

Shikkoku: Summer's slow, and so am I, it seems. It took me about a month to do this short chapter, partly because of stress, partly because of unwillingness to get this thing finished.

Something I found out last month was that was M rated fics don't seem to get as many readers as the other ratings get. I changed the rating for New Blood from M to T and the hit count just shot straight up (even though I _still _don't have any reviews for either of my KOF stories). I'm most likely to blame, since the pace of Kurai Tenshi is a lot slower than New Blood or Tsurugi no Kirokusuru, so the plot may not advance much.

_Notes:_

_You notice that I switch between 'Epsilon' and 'Eli' a lot in this chapter. I use Eli more mainly because that's a more normal sounding name._

_Every once in a while, Eli gets a little insane (most of the time it's when he's in a job or fighting someone he doesn't really care about), and the chapter after the next one will explain why he gets so wound up sometimes._

_I know the fight was short, but it was mostly to get a better grasp of Eli's power. I finally got a good idea of how it works now._

_Don't expect massive parings of characters in this story (that's what New Blood is for…)_

I'm leaving tomorrow to go on a trip, and while I'm there, I am going to take my notebooks and (hopefully) work on some chapters for my other two stories, and maybe some other ones on the side.

Next Chapter: The girls go out, dragging poor Eli with him. And unfortunately, so does some trouble.

Have a kickass weekend everyone! Until Next Time…


	6. Night

Disclaimer: SNKP owns everything that wasn't created by me.

----------

Kurai Tenshi: Keppaku

By Shikkoku Kiyoshi

----------

Part of Eli's psyche wasn't very keen on spending a night out with Malin's friends. He felt kinda silly going out on the town when he had a multi-million dollar bounty on his head and people prowling the streets looking for him. If Malin got hurt, God knows what evil he would inflict…

"How do I look?" Malin spun around a bit in front of Epsilon. She was wearing a white blouse, dark baggy pants and dark shoes. Her hair was down and it reached to her upper back.

"You look cute." Eli said. Honestly, she was so cute he didn't really care what she dressed as, but of course, he wasn't about to tell her that.

"You are going to behave yourself, are you?" Malin warned. "I don't want you spending all night acting like all gloomy."

The assassin just rolled his eyes. "I'll be good." He mumbled.

_KNOCK! KNOCK! _

"That must be them!" Malin excitedly opened the door. The duo of Kasumi and Hinako walked in. Hinako was dressed the same, but Kasumi ditched the dress in favor of a pale blue shirt, and a long black skirt.

While Hinako and Malin chatted up a storm, Kasumi approached Eli, who was sitting the steps.

"Please forgive me for earlier." Kasumi said, with a hint of embarrassment in her voice. She never liked admitting she was wrong, but she trusted Malin's judgment enough. "I didn't mean to be so rashly."

Eli's lips shifted into a smile. He didn't think she was actually serious earlier. "It's okay. You're intentions were good, so it's no big deal." He said. "You are Kasumi Todoh, right?"

Kasumi nodded. "Yes. And you're name is….uh…" She rubbed the back of her head in frustration.

"You can call me Eli if you wish."

"Okay."

"We're going to leave you two behind…" Malin said. Kasumi quickly hurried to follow her friends, with Eli following behind her.

As soon as they got outside, Eli noticed the very long limo parked on the curb. "What the…"

"I got my parents to rent me a limo for today!" Hinako said excitedly.

"Are we all going to be able to fit?" Malin asked.

"Of course." The sumo girl led them all inside. It was quite big enough, with nice, plush, comfy seats. "So where do you want to go first?"

"I wanna go to the arcade." Eli said.

"I wanna go to the comic store!" Malin said.

"I want to go out and eat!" Kasumi said.

Hinako blinked for a moment. "Why don't we just go to the mall, that way we could go wherever we need to go?" She suggested, attempting to stop the inevitable argument before it started. "I know a place nearby here."

Everyone agreed.

----------

Kandori Toba sighed.

"What the hell is this?" He said to the cashier, holding a messed up issue of Shonen Jump in his hand. It was ruined for the most part.

"We haven't gotten our refill shipment for the magazines yet." The clerk said. "It was put on the lowest priority possible, so it'll be a few days before we get them…"

"Don't you think that after someone shoots a store up, you should close it for more than a couple of days while they fix things up?" He mumbled, throwing the magazine to the side. "It makes the people here look lazy when some stuff is restocked and others are still laying broken on the shelves. But I guess they wanted you to get open faster so they wouldn't lose any more money, huh?"

Kandori paid for his stuff and quickly left, focusing his direction towards the mall a few blocks away. He still needed to get his book, after all.

----------

When the group finally got to the mall, Malin insisted that they go to the comic store.

"Come on, Eli. You're not thinking of ditching us to go to the arcade, are you?" Malin said, gently tugging at his arm, which seem to tense a little. "Is there something wrong?"

Eli just smiled and shook his head. "I'm okay." He answered softly. Skin-to-skin contact with girls was still a foreign thing to him.

At the store, everyone scattered across the area. Eli slunk around till he found the newest volume of Death Note, and started to read. 

While that was happening, Kandori walked into the mall, and made his way into the store. He immediately went straight towards the magazines and got his copy of Shonen Jump, which just happened to be the last issue.

"Finally…" He muttered.

"Hello Kandori." One of the female workers said. "We haven't seen you in a while."

"I know." Kandori smiled. "I've been busy somewhere else. So, what's been going on?"

While Kandori was chatting away with the worker, Kasumi and Hinako were standing behind him, waiting to purchase their stuff.

"What is he doing?" Kasumi whispered.

"By the looks of it, he seems to be flirting with the cashier." Hinako replied.

After another minute, the girl's cell phone beeped. Upon a quick look, a panicked expression appeared on her face.

"Kandori, could you cover for me?" She whispered. "My friend just told me that there's about to be a massive fight at the food court, and I want to catch that before security breaks it up."

Kandori rolled his eyes and jumped over the counter and went into the back as the female worker left the counter. Kandori returned a few minutes later to the register were the two girls were waiting.

"Sorry about that." He greeted warmly. "I'll take it from here."

"Do you work here?"

Kandori shook his head. "Not today, but I'm covering for someone while. You can call me Kandori."

"Hello, Kandori." Kasumi returned the gesture. Hinako just waved.

They started to pay for their stuff, but Malin interrupted them…

"Hey everyone, Eli likes to read Gravitation!" Malin ran around the store with a copy of the infamous manga.

"That's not for me! Give that back!" Eli shouted as chased Malin around the store.

"Don't mind them." Kasumi frowned. "They're just playing around."

"Heh, I can tell." He laughed to himself before giving Kasumi and Hinako their items. "I gave you a little discount, okay?"

"Thank you." They both said.

"It's no problem." Kandori smiled. "And I see your friends are already leaving the store. You better go out and catch them."

"Oh dear!" Hinako sighed as she saw her friend continue to tease Eli. "I really need to go." She left quickly, Kasumi following her.

As he watched them leave, he had a slight sense of foreshadowing going on in his head.

"I guess this won't be the last time I see you two."

----------

By time that was all over, Eli had already left the others and went to the arcade. He needed to get away from Malin and her excessive teasing. He also needed to get this feeling of dread that seemed to fill his stomach.

Eli inserted his change into the first light gun game he could find, and started shooting. The deaths of virtual crime lords seemed to relax him a bit. He pictured them as the people who placed the bounty on him. Not only were they ruining his life, they were making it hard to work.

Epsilon was an assassin-for-hire, meaning that he chose his assignments, rather than working for one sole person. He preferred to choose his jobs, rather than having some one tell him what and who deserved to die. But the large amount of cash that was dangling over his head made it hard to accept contracts from people. Eli hadn't checked his contacts in about a month, and he was running low on funds.

"I guess I'm going to have to take the risk and accept someone's contract." He thought.

"Er…"

Eli whipped around, pointing his light gun at the voice, which turned out to be Hinako, who let out a small scream, before covering her mouth.

"Heh, whoops." Eli smiled nervously. "Sorry about that."

"It's okay." She said apologetically. "I didn't mean to sneak up on you. I just wanted to see how you were doing, that's all." 

"I'm fine. Where are the others?"

"Malin drug Kasumi to the department store to look at some clothes, and she asked me to find you." She replied. "I hope I didn't interrupt your game."

_GAME OVER!_

"It's not a big deal." Eli said, despite the grimace on his face. "Now, where should we go next…?"

"Ooooh!" Hinako said excitedly. "Do you think I could try it?"

"If that's what you want…." Eli put in some more change.

The end result turned out to be somewhat comical, as Hinako, who obviously had never wielded a weapon before in her life, proceeded to shoot at every thing that remotely looked like a threat, even the people that was supposed give the health bonuses. It was a miracle that she made it past the first level.

"Okay, you're doing this wrong." Eli sighed. "You're too unsteady."

He positioned himself behind the girl and placed his hands on top of hers in order to straighten her aim. Hinako felt all the blood go to her face.

"Calm down." Eli said softly. "Take your time and focus, okay?"

Hinako nodded weakly. "You sound kinda like Rikuto…"

"Rikuto?" Eli was surprised to hear that name after a long time… "You know him?"

"He's a friend of mine. He's pretty close to me, just like you are right now."

"Huh?" Eli's brain then pointed out that he was _extremely_ close to Hinako's body right now and jumped back, making sure that she couldn't see him blushing. "I'm so sorry."

Hinako just giggled. "I take it back, you're exactly like Rikuto. How do you know him?"

"He's my friend too, but I haven't heard from him in months."

"I haven't talked to him in a while either, but…" The sumo girl pondered for a moment. "He did say that he had some personal issues to take care of in another part of the country."

"Personal issues huh?" Eli thought to himself. "Well the next time you speak to him, tell him that Eli needs to speak with him ASAP."

"I'll let him know that."

"And you just lost the game."

"What?" Hinako turned to find out that while they've been talking, the game had proceeded and ended up killing her inactive character.

---------

Kandori left the bookstore after another few minutes, Shonen Jump in hand. But he didn't exactly feel like leaving for some reason…

"My intuition seems to be bothering me." He thought as he wandered around the mall. It seemed to peak a little while he was talking to those girls and saw that kid with the funny-colored hair.

Kandori remembered that the one sole person who was in that store before it got shot up said that a light haired young boy was ordering the building.

He also remembered that one of the shooters referred to him as 'Epsilon'.

Kandori wasn't a delinquent, but he did have some friends that were 'well tuned' to the criminal underground, so to speak. He knew that there was a huge bounty on Epsilon's head, and that a good portion of the criminal activity was gunning for his head.

Kandori doubted someone who reads something like _Gravitation_ would have various felons after him, but if it was, he didn't want those girls to get caught in the crossfire. He really needed to get some more information, however, before he jumped the gun and ended up in an embarrassing, comical and potentially painful situation.

Turning around, he walked in the direction of the restaurant, where he knew two people that could possibly help him.

--------

Kasumi Todoh and Malin were waiting for Hinako and Eli when they finally returned from their excursion in the arcade, and the former immediately demanded that they go eat.

"But the food court is all the way on the other side of the mall." Eli said.

"I want to eat at a normal restaurant!" Kasumi said eagerly. "What about that place over there?"

The place Kasumi was referring to was not only a restaurant, but a bar and a dance hall as well. Eli could almost hear the music from were he was standing.

"That could work." Hinako looked at the long line. "But we could be waiting here for hours."

They let the comment sink in for a moment before Eli spoke up. "I know how we can get in." Then he left to go to the front of the line. Because they were so far back, none of the girls could hear what he was saying to the host.

After a minute, Eli came back. "Okay, he'll let us in right now."

The girls all gave him blank looks. "How did you do that?"

"My little secret." Eli smiled. He waited for Kasumi and Hinako to leave before he turned to Malin and said, "I bribed him."

Malin's could have sworn that her jaw hung there for a second. "What?! Where you even get the money to bribe them from?"

"Miyazaki."

"Who?"

"Just someone I 'interacted' with earlier today."

"So you killed someone and stole his money?"

"His money, his credit cards, some expensive figurines, about half the contents of his fridge and his Playstation." He gave an evil smile. "Such are the perks of assassination."

"You know….sometimes you really do scare me." Malin gave him a weird look.

"Being feared is part of the job." Eli laughed gently. "And in your case, you would make a terrible assassin, Malin."

"Shut up, Eli."

----------

Kandori didn't have to wait in line, however, because he had gone through the 'workers only' entrance. It was a very lively place this time of day, so it took him a while to find who he was looking for.

"Alek! Tanna!" He rushed over to the bar area, were the two were having a discussion. They welcomed him over.

"Hey, Kandori-chan." Tanna said. "How are you?"

"What did I did I tell you about calling me 'chan'?" Kandori frowned. "Anyway, I'm doing fine, but I need your help on something."

"Hmm? What is it?" Alek asked.

"Uh…could you tell me about this 'Epsilon' person people are talking about? I know some things, but I don't know the whole story about this bounty somebody placed on him."

"You won't find any information on who or why they put the bounty on him." Alek took a big gulp of his drink before continuing. "All the notices were posted anonymously, but with a amount that big, many people decided to take the risk of being shafted and started hunting him down."

"Why are you looking for him then?" 

"Well, considering the amount of money on his head, it was kinda intriguing, but we're having doubts now. I figured he was some kind of vicious murderer, but he's only a kid."

"We had found him earlier this week, but some girl decided to save him instead." Tanna added. "But the bounty is still up, so I don't think she turned him in."

"Stupid girl…" Alek muttered.

"Hmm." Kandori remembered something. "Was she a blond girl with brown eyes?"

"Uh, yeah." Tanna was confused.

"And was Epsilon a boy with light colored hair and strange eyes?"

They both nodded.

Kandori sighed. This wasn't going to end well.

----------

The very moment they were shown their seat, Malin had flown to the dance floor. Hinako and Kasumi joined her, though most of their time was spent with the former trying to get the latter to dance. Eli was left sitting on the table, one hand on his chin, the other stirring a drink that was slowly getting colder as he watched Malin move across the dance floor.

The assassin stopped stirring his drink and took a sip. As awkward as this trip was at first, it wasn't without its rewards. The fact that Hinako had spoke to Rikuto meant that the chances of his situation ending cleanly had increased greatly.

"Eli, why aren't you dancing with us?"

Malin had suddenly appeared next to him.

Eli glared at her. "I don't dance."

"But you're missing out on all the fun…" Malin pouted. "You look like the time that could be a great dancer."

Eli sighed. "I don't know were you got that idea, but how about this…" He took another sip of his drink. "Sometime before I leave, I'll dance with you, okay?"

"Leave?" The girl was confused. Where did this leaving talk come from?

"I'm waiting for a call from a friend of mine." Eli said. "Hopefully he can help me find the origin of this bounty and I can go home. It won't be for a while though, so don't get too happy."

"Okay…" Malin was relieved a bit.

"Besides, I know where you live now, so I can come and break into your house anytime I want." Eli stuck out his tongue before Malin hit him.

----------

Meanwhile, Kandori had just finished his explanation about what he saw earlier. Needless to say, Alek and Tanna were shocked.

"He's here?!?" Alek nearly shouted. "What the hell are we going to do?"

"Hush! We have to think this though first, unless you want a repeat of last time." Tanna answered harshly. "Kandori, didn't you say that they were with two others?"

Kandori nodded in confirmation.

"So they quite possibly are friends of that blonde girl. Do you think they could pose to be an obstacle in our progress?" Right about then, a man literally flew over them and crashed into the bar. "The hell?!"

Kandori quickly scanned the room in order to find the person who did this. His eyes finally focused on the girl from earlier, looking more aggravated than before.

"Stay here." He said, before getting up and rushing toward her. "What happened?"

"Kandori?!" Kasumi was confused. "What are you doing here?"

"I was talking to someone, but anyway, did you do that?"

"He put his hands on me!" Kasumi said loudly.

"Actually," Hinako interrupted. "He only put his hand on your shoulder, and he looked like he was about to ask you to dance."

"I don't care! I should have dislocated his shoulder before I threw him!"

"I wouldn't worry about that. He's probably got a lot of things dislocated by now." Kandori smiled nervously. "Are you going to be okay?"

"Yes, thank you." Kasumi said, before Hinako drug her off before she could cause anymore trouble.

Kandori returned to his seat. "Yep, you're going to have some problems."

-----------

Thankfully, Kasumi's little incident didn't get the others kicked out of the mall, so they enjoyed the rest of the day rather peacefully. As they were walking back to Hinako's limo however…

"You know," a voice said, "you really are a pain to find."

"Hmmm?" Eli searched for the voice. There was a gang of men blocking their path. "Shit, not this again."

"Yep. Another person who wants that bounty." The leader said. "I bet you wish you hadn't left whatever hole you crawled out of, huh?"

"I guess." Eli shrugged, though inside, he was seething. He certainly couldn't fight them in front of Hinako and Kasumi without raising questions. But, as always, the need for bloodshed was calling, and he certainly couldn't refuse that.

But before he could turn the scene into a bloodbath, another voice sounded out.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" A few more men arrived. "He's our meal ticket, and we're not going to let you kill him before we do!"

"Huh?" Everyone (but Eli, of course) was confused.

As the two gangs started to go back and forth about who gets the money, another group showed up. Unlike the others, however…

"That's her!" It was the person that Kasumi had thrown at the club, and it looked like he had his _own_ team of men wanting to get revenge on her. "Let's teach that girl a lesson!"

"Stay out of our business!"

"You stay out of _ours!_"

The situation slowly turned into a fight between the many gangs. And while the situation clearly wasn't as focused on the assassin as it was only a few seconds before, Eli was still pretty upset, though it was mostly out of frustration than outrage.

"What were are all these men talking about?" Hinako asked.

"Er, I don't know." Eli lied. "They must have me confused with some other kid. Why don't you go on ahead while I deal with these people."

"Eli…" Malin said.

"I'll be fine, I promise." Eli motioned his head for everyone to leave.

With the girls gone, he sighed. "Is money all these idiots are after?"

"No, Eli. It's your blood they want. The money is only a convenient bonus." Eli recognized that voice. It was Alek and Tanna.

"You didn't think we would disappear, did you kid?" Tanna smiled. "You're too valuable."

"I don't need this…" Eli muttered. "I'll kill all of you."

"That's what we were worried about." Alek said. "That's why we're not going to capture you. At least for now."

"What?"

"We're starting to have doubts about this whole 'bounty' thing. That amount of money is very high for someone your age, and Me and Tanna have some sort a sneaking suspicion about this whole thing."

Eli relented a bit. "So you feel that way too, huh?" Eli looked back at the men that were still bickering over who gets him.

"Well, I guess you could kill them…"

"No way! There's too many potential witnesses here, so I'll make myself scarce. Security is coming anyway." Eli glanced at the two hunters. "I appreciate your help, but if you continue to hunt me down, let it be known that you probably won't live much longer." He smiled. "Don't be fooled. I'm no kid. I am the Kurai Tenshi." He walked away.

"He's getting away!" One of the men said. But Eli was nowhere to be seen.

Tanna and Alek decided to walk away before the cops came and started asking questions.

"Looks like Kandori was right." Tanna thought. "We really need to think about this."

----------

After Malin said goodbye to her friends, she went upstairs to see Eli sitting on the bed, hands running through his hair. Malin sat besides him.

"I guess I didn't really think about what would happen if someone noticed you." She said gently. "I just wanted you to cheer you up, because you always seem so gloomy."

"I know. I appreciate you helping me improve my mood. Besides, I managed to get away without any problems, so it wasn't a big deal anyway. I had fun." Eli yawned. "I don't want you to worry yourself sick with my well-being."

"I thought about this, and I think I'm going to have a talk with an associate of mine tomorrow."

"An associate? Who?"

"Someone who gave me a big contract a while ago. He's pretty cool, so hopefully I can trust him." He yawned again. "But let's not worry about that now. I need to get some sleep."

"Okay." Malin got up. "By the way, you don't have to dance with me if you don't want to."

"No, I'll dance with you." Eli shook his head. "Just make sure you bring a paper bag."

"For what?"

"So you can hide your face after I embarrass you in public." He laughed.

Malin just rolled her eyes and went downstairs to get her sleeping bag. Eli laid on the bed and stared at the ceiling with a blank look.

She didn't know that tomorrow, for at least a while, he'll be back to being an assassin again.

----------

Shikkoku: For a story that hasn't been updated in five months, this isn't a very satisfying chapter, I know. Now, I apologize, but as I said before, I had other things that needed my attention. But, for the most part, Kurai Tenshi is back and just as mediocre as ever…

_Notes:_

_Kandori Toba….what can I say? He's going to play a very significant role in this story later on; both involving Kasumi and whether or not he'll go after Eli's bounty. Rikuto will be introduced next chapter. Alek and Tanna are pretty much going to remain side characters, though their story will be made more clearer the next time around._

_In fact, the next two chapters are going to, at the very least, be pivotal to the plot. Eli is finally going to get some information, someone very, very, very important is introduced, and the assassin has a pretty big decision to make. The next chapter is going to be very dark._

_I love KOFXI. I just wanted to let everyone know._

Next Chapter: Epsilon does a job for someone in exchange for information about his bounty, Kandori runs into Kasumi again, and ends up in a fight, and Malin meets the darker side of Eli's personality.

Until next time.


	7. Killer Intentions

Disclaimer: SNK owns the King of Fighters and its corresponding characters.

---

Kurai Tenshi: Keppaku

By Shikkoku Kiyoshi

---

An hour after they supposedly went to sleep, Eli was wide awake, staring at the ceiling.

After being somewhat forced to take a sabbatical, Epsilon was in a way, excited to, at the very least, get an offer. The back of his mind, however, was wondering how he was going to explain this to Malin.

While he had already killed one person while living with her, he knew that she would probably try to go with him in the name of keeping him 'safe', which while very sweet of her, would most likely end up with her seeing stuff that most people her age shouldn't see outside of the safety of their television shows and video games.

Most of the scenarios that Eli thought of would probably result either with him getting kicked out of the house, her calling the cops, or, in the worst case, someone (other than the intended victim) dying.

Then again, he doubted any girl who used illegal weaponry in a fight would be the most innocent girl in the world. And besides, she was in KOF, and god knows that you can count the normal people in that tournament on one hand. But still, it felt wrong to let Malin come along with him.

"Maybe I should leave right now while she's asleep." Eli thought, but immediately dismissed the idea. Leaving in the middle of the night would probably just encourage her to go out and find him. He really didn't want to admit it, but he was starting to feel certain…..well, he couldn't really describe what it was, but he was sure that it had something to do with Malin. It felt weird and a little worrisome, as he never had this feeling with anyone before. Could it be...?

"I'm losing it." Eli sat up a bit. "I need to get these thoughts out of my head for the moment and get to sleep."

Eli's mind slowly started to drift, and in a few minutes, his restlessness was gone, and he finally went to sleep.

---

That very morning, he quickly got dressed and headed downstairs, in a much better mood than he was earlier.

Malin was, amazingly, still sleeping, so whatever chances of disruption by her part had diminished greatly. Writing a quick note, he left quietly out the door. Now that the hard part was done, he could get started.

Now, there are some steps that Eli would do when he has the potential of a job. First, he needed to meet his client, get the information on his target and what he needed to do.

After a half hour of walking, he made it to where his client was set to meet him. It looked like your average office building, but in it held one of Epsilon's most trusted clients; Izumida Masao.

Izumida was a family friend, and one of the first people to accept his services. Out of all the people he has worked for, Eli trusted him the most.

"Come on in, Epsilon." He greeted warmly when Eli entered the building. "I'm glad to see that you're still alive."

"Yeah, it's been tough." Eli grinned. "But I managed to survive."

They went to Izumida's office. "So, I'm assuming that you're here for a job?"

Eli nodded. "If I don't get any work soon, I'm going to snap."

"Well, I'm glad that you made it here when you did. I have an issue that requires your services greatly." He pushed a file towards him. "There are some people that have been causing problems for us. Most of the information you need is in this file."

"That should be enough."

"And I assume that you'll want the typical compensation for this kind of job?" Izumida asked.

"Yes, but I also want to know if you can get me any information on the source of the bounty placed on me."

"Well, I do have a little information, but I don't really know if it could be of any use."

"Anything is better than nothing." Eli got up. "Just send it along with my payment for the job."

"You're certainly starting to act just like your father." Izumida said.

"Well…my path is much different than his." He turned to leave. "Thanks for the opportunity, Izumida."

---

Kandori's encounter last night turned out to have bigger consequences than he originally thought.

After Tanna and Alek came back from confronting Epsilon, they had explained the situation to him. As far as he knew, a high level bounty had walked into the bookstore yesterday and he was too busy flirting with girls to notice. When they were all about to go home, he asked the two bounty hunters what they thought.

---

"_I'm not really sure anymore." Tanna said. "This whole situation is getting complicated."_

"_I understand that, but aren't you primarily in this for the huge amount of cash?" Kandori said._

"_Of course. With cash like that, we could be set for a while." Alek answered. "We could pay for you to go to college too, Kandori. Maybe then you wouldn't have to study so hard."_

"_While I'm flattered that you would do such a thing, I'm pretty sure I'll get a scholarship anyway. Besides, you don't know if that money is even real."_

"_It's probably not, but the chance of it alone is worth going forward, at least." Tanna said. "If you want, I could drive you home, Kandori_

"_Nah. I'll be okay. It's still early for me." Kandori started to walk across the parking lot. "I'll see you guys later."_

"_BYE, KANDORI-CHAN!" They both said in unison._

"_FUCK YOU!" The boy shouted. "AND STOP CALLING ME 'CHAN'!"_

_---_

Stuff like this usually didn't usually cause such turmoil in people like Tanna and Alek, so it was slightly concerning for Kandori, but he figured that things would be cool. His only problem was the fact that if his friends did decide to approach the bounty, they would most likely ask him for his help. Most of the time he would gleefully join them, but this was one of those times where his concern about his livelihood was more important than some quick cash.

But there would be time for that later. For now, he was at the park, more or less bored out of his mind. Walking aimlessly he read his Shonen Jump, trying to take his mind off the uneasiness he felt. It relaxed him, at least. Unfortunately, he was so engrossed in the magazine that he didn't see the girl that was walking right towards him.

_BAM!_

Kandori was shaken a bit, and looked around to see what had hit him. He finally noticed the girl on the ground, and she looked familiar. It was that girl from yesterday.

"It never ends." He thought to himself.

"Hey, what's the big idea…?" Kasumi was about to complain when she noticed just who she had bumped into. "Kandori?"

"Uh…yeah." He said sheepishly. "Hey there…are any of your friends from yesterday with you?"

"No, I'm here by myself." Kasumi said. "I didn't mean to be so rude."

"It's okay." Kandori was relieved that Epsilon wasn't out again, but then again, when you have a cash reward on your head, only an idiot would want to go out in this time of day.

---

Eli was sitting on a bench, going through the information on his target when his cell phone rang. He didn't even remember that he had one until then, as nobody had called him since this incident started. He decided to take the risk and answer it.

"Hello?"

"I see you've gotten yourself into trouble again, huh Eli?"

"Rikuto?"

"Yeah it's me." He chuckled. "Hinako told me that you needed to talk to me, how's it going?"

"Don't give me that crap." Eli frowned. "I haven't heard from you in months. Don't you think I deserve an explanation?"

"Didn't she tell you? I had family business to take care of." Rikuto answered.

"Family business? That doesn't sound like you to be concerned with family politics."

"It does when my older sister is involved." Rikuto said darkly. "She's dead."

"What?!"

"Yeah, the disease finally got her. I've spent all this time at the hospital by her side, and I didn't want to have to leave, so I kinda locked myself out of the underground. I wasn't trying to be mean; I just needed some time to myself."

"I didn't realize…"

"It's okay. Had I known that you were in your situation, I would have been there sooner. But my parents have been trying their damndest to gain custody of my niece." Rikuto sighed. "It's not going well. She's already been placed in an orphanage."

"Why would it be so complicated? If your parents are the grandparents of this child, shouldn't they automatically get custody?"

"Funny thing about that….it's quite hard to find a court willing to give custody of a 15 year old girl to a family that has a bad reputation. Especially, when that family was the one who kicked out that girl's mother when they found out she was pregnant in the first place." Eli could hear the bitterness in his voice. "Pair that with a deadbeat dad, that, by the way, we still need to find and 'punish' for his actions, and you got a rather fucked up custody hearing. Not even our high priced lawyers could do anything about it."

"Ouch. I'm sorry to hear that." Eli responded.

"Anyway…while that stuff has been going on, I've been looking up information about your bounty recently , and I've managed to find something interesting."

"Hmm? You have?"

"Yeah. Apparently it's not from a group, but from a single person. And that person seems to have an vendetta against you."

"I figured as much." Eli said flatly.

"The main thing I discovered is that most of the information traces back to another part of town." Rikuto continued. "If you want to continue looking further, that would be the place, but I need you to wait for me to get back, so I can secure you a place to stay. You need my assistance."

"How long will it take you to get back?"

"The way the custody hearings are going, we should be leaving in less than a week, with or without my niece."

"Okay. I understand perfectly." Eli said, "I guess there are no more clues to be found here."

"Yeah. Why don't you spend some time with your new girl before you leave?" Rikuto snickered. "I know you don't have a romantic bone in your body, and you freeze up when a girl touches you, but at least _try_ to get her in the sack."

The assassin shook his head. "Be quiet, Rikuto."

A laugh was heard. "Did you check on Synth?"

Eli smiled. "Yeah, yesterday."

"That's good. I know you go out of the way to keep her safe, but you still need to make sure she's okay once in a while." Eli could hear some voices in the background. "That's my parents. We're going to spend some time with my niece, as we're probably not going see her again for a while. I'll let you know when we leave."

"Thanks, Rikuto."

"It's no problem, Epsilon. Be careful."

Eli hung up the phone, a weight lifted off his shoulders. He was actually starting to make progress. Now, all he had to do was complete this job, get some additional info from Izumida and stay low for a week. Then he will go up town, kill whoever placed the bounty on him and take the cash. Once the other criminals find that there's no money to be gained, they'll lose interest quickly and he'll be in the clear, back to being the Kurai Tenshi he knew he was.

"Well, might as well go back home and get prepared..." Eli said, getting out of the bench and disappearing into the crowd.

---

"Eli?" Malin called, but he wasn't in the house.

She had looked everywhere, and was starting to get worried. When she checked the door, she found a note.

_Went out on personal business. Don't even think about following me._

_Epsilon._

"Personal…business?" Malin said to herself, a feeling of dread going through her. "That must mean he's going to kill someone again!"

Malin rushed back upstairs to put on her clothes, but stopped halfway.

"Why am I so concerned about him killing someone? He only kills bad people, anyway." Malin thought. "Then again, could you really justify murder just because it's happening to bad people?" She paused. "Why am I getting so philosophical all of a sudden?"

Malin knew that Eli didn't want her to get hurt. She also knew that Eli was worried that the prospect of a bloodthirsty killer in her house would be too much for her, and that if she saw what he did, she would get scared and kick him out. Malin did have some moral issues at first, but Eli seemed….way different than what she perceived as an assassin. He wasn't a cold, emotionless killer, or a sadistic psychopath who got off to other people's pain, or a busty woman who wore skintight clothes.

Eli was just a normal kid who just so happed to kill people for a living.

Maybe it was that fact that made her gloss over some of the more, well, 'malicious' parts of his personality, or maybe it was that fact that is the reason why she helped him in the first place. But it really made no difference now. She felt an obligation to protect him, even if she didn't really have an idea why.

Despite that, Malin chose not to confront him. He had his business, she had hers. Sighing, she went downstairs to start cooking breakfast.

---

"So, what are you doing here?" Kasumi asked Kandori while they walked through the park.

"Ehh, I don't really know, to be honest. I'm just bored I guess." Kandori answered. "I don't really do much but study, work, sleep, and hang out with bounty hunters."

"Bounty hunters?"

"Alek and Tanna. We've been friends for years, even though they're a little older than me. They're already in college, but they work as hunters in order to ease costs." He shrugged. "Sometimes they like to drag me into their little excursions. It's fun, even though sometimes I end up getting hurt."

"That sounds very….interesting." Kasumi said, obviously concerned with what she heard.

"You don't have to lie. It's stupid and dangerous for a 16-year-old kid to go out hunt criminals, but I support my friends. Besides, it's not like I can't defend myself."

"Really?" Kasumi started to gain interest. "Do you know any martial-arts?"

"Some." Kandori replied. "But not a lot. Do you?"

"Well…" Kasumi gave a sweet smile. As much as part of her wanted to make a comment about Kandori not knowing who she was, she chose to surpress that urge for once. "Would you like me to show you?"

"Uh…" Kandori looked around. He guessed it would be alright. "Okay."

"Good. Now stay still."

The next few minutes consisted of Kandori flinching as Kasumi threw controlled punches and kicks at various parts of his body, coming short of hitting him again and again. He felt embarrassed, but couldn't help to admire the technique of this nameless girl. Speaking of which…

"Uh, I never got a chance to…"

_SMACK!_

Kandori, in his attempt to ask for Kasumi's name, shifted a bit. The end result was him on the ground, dazed, rubbing his cheek.

"Oh, Kandori I'm sorry!" Kasumi apologized. "I didn't really mean to hit you."

"It's my fault. I shouldn't have moved." Kandori cringed. He hoped it didn't bruise, the last think he wanted was for Tanna to tease him for the rest of the year because he got beat up by a girl. "What I meant to say is that I never got your name."

"You didn't?" Kasumi thought that he would have recognized her from the various KOF tournaments. "My name is Kasumi Todoh."

Kandori took on a mildly surprised tone. "You don't mean…"

Kasumi didn't know whether Kandori said that in fear or in awe, but she continued. "Yes, I am the heir to Todoh-ryuu."

Kandori slapped his head. "How can I be so dense? I should have recognized you!"

"Uh…that's okay. It's certainly better than having some crazy fanboy stalk me everywhere, so don't beat yourself up over it." She said gently.

"Sorry." Kandori picked himself off the ground. "I didn't mean to overreact. I just feel silly, that's all."

"Why don't you wait here while I go get some ice?" Kasumi said before walking away to the ice machines in the middle of the park.

"Shit, that girl is tough one…" He scratched his head. Kandori decided it was best that he kept the bounty news a secret from her for now. If she found out, it could make this situation even more complicated...

----

Because Eli didn't really need to do anything till that evening, he decided it would be best to go back to Malin's house to rest up for a bit. Besides, he figured if he stayed for a while, she would be less concerned about his whereabouts later. Noticing that Malin was too busy watching television to notice him, he flopped right next to her. She screamed for a second before covering her mouth.

"Sorry…" she apologized.

Eli smiled. "It's fine. Anyway, I'm going to stay here a bit before I head out again."

"So, you haven't killed anyone yet?"

Eli frowned, but realized that his intentions were way too obvious for his own good. What else would he be trying to do? "Not at this moment. I usually have to wait before I approach a target."

"Target? Are you talking in assassin terms?" Malin said. "I didn't know you still had people willing to work with you?"

"I have at least one. And in exchange for my services, I'll be getting information that will hopefully help me out."

"Don't you ever find it strange that someone is asking you to kill for them?"

"Ehh…it's something that takes getting used to." Eli lifted his shoulders gently. "To be honest, most assassins train for years to do their job efficiently. I kinda got thrown into the job, but my family is naturally skilled to an extent."

"Family…" Malin remembered that Eli never mentioned his parents before. "What happened to your family?"

"I told you before; I'm not going to talk about my family, or my past for that matter."

"Why?"

"You don't want to hear my long boring story about my parents getting killed by ramen shop owners because my dad refused to pay his tab."

"…That's not true, isn't it?" Malin said.

"I never said it was. I just made that up to see how you would react." He crossed his arms. "Listen, I know that you care, but I'm not telling you the sad, sad events that led up to me being an assassin. It's long, it's dark, it's difficult for me to talk about, and it's not really vital to any of my current situations. I'll just have to remain mysterious in your eyes."

"I know, but…" Malin turned off the TV. "I don't really know much about you on a personal standpoint, and I want you to trust me. You trust me, don't you?"

Eli frowned a bit. "Of course. But still, I really don't want to talk about it. Besides, you're probably already uncomfortable with me staying here."

"Why do you keep saying that? I'm perfectly fine with you being here, if I wasn't I wouldn't have let you in the damn house to begin with!" Malin found her self talking a little too loud and composed herself. "If you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to. But please, don't push me away like I'm being a nothing but a burden to you. I want to be your friend."

Eli put his face in his hands and sighed. "You're not being a burden. I'm just not used to being helped by others. And I'm certainly not used to people wanting to befriend me without wanting something in return." He suddenly got an idea. "Do you need anyone killed?"

"Are you nuts?" It was Malin's turn to frown. "I'm not going to order a hit on anyone!"

"Aww, come on. I'll do it for free." Eli smiled evilly. "There's has to be _someone_ that you hate enough that you wish that they would go away forever."

"Uh…well…." Thoughts of Yuri Sakazaki danced in her head, but she quickly shook them away. "NO!"

"Oh well." Eli smiled. "Now that I think about it, there is someone I would like you to meet."

"There is? Who is it?" Malin said with anticipation.

"You'll just have to wait till tomorrow." Eli smirked. "Don't worry, I promise it's no one bad."

"Really? I certainly hope so. I wouldn't like to have to send my new friend to the hospital."

"Hmph. You can try if you want to." The assassin got up off his seat. "Now how about we try and hook up that new PS2 I got?"

"You mean the one you stole from that guy right after you killed him?" Malin said flatly.

"Yep. That one."

---

Time flew by really quickly. They had been playing video games for about five hours straight, and it was time for Eli to go complete his assignment.

"Hey, I'm going to be back pretty late, so spare yourself the trouble and don't stay up all night waiting for me to come home." Eli said as he got ready to leave. He was thankful that he didn't have to fight his way out of the house, as Malin was willing to let him go without argument.

He could feel her eyes burning a hole in his back, and it was making him uncomfortable. "Please don't worry, Malin. This is a routine situation."

His new friend still had an unsure look on his face. Sighing, he gave her a sad smile and walked out of the door. He wanted to reassure her, but that would only make what he was going to do more difficult.

---

_**One of the most crucial parts of being an assassin is patience...**_

_**---**_

In the parking lot of one of Japan's most popular restaurants, Epsilon sat and waited for his target to walk out. He was leaning against a car, watching the people go in and out. As tempting as it was to go in there and eat, he couldn't really risk being spotted, as a lot of criminals tended to eat here, and he didn't really keep his identity secret enough to just waltz right in there and not get noticed. So he just waited, taking a occasional bite of a chocolate bar to curb his hunger. Clouds were forming in the sky. Even though he would prefer it if it didn't rain right now, it would provide good cover for him later on.

In the scope of his vision, he could see the car which housed his newest victim. Eli ducked into the shadows, preparing to put his plan into action.

Norita Takashi was a noteworthy master in the criminal underworld. According to his brief, he has been instrumental in a whole lot of grisly crimes, including the murder of a lot of innocent people over the years. That was more than enough motivation for Epsilon to kill him. Morality wasn't important at the moment.

He waited till the driver dropped Norita off. Usually, drivers would ride around or get something to eat while they waited for their bosses to get done, and Eli was about to use that to his advantage. As the car left the lot, he started to trail it in secret, making sure that he didn't look too suspicious. When the car finally stopped at a nearby gas station and the driver got out, Epsilon ducked behind the car, and using his black energy, made a thin needle and used it to pick the lock. Quietly, he slid into the car, gently closed the door and hid in the back, lying on the floor, which wasn't very comfortable. He could hear the sound of rain hitting the roof of the car.

Epsilon stayed like that for a few minutes, till he heard the car door opened. It was time to put his plan into action. The very second the driver sat down to start the car; he felt an arm wrapped about his neck. His eyes crept over to the rearview mirror; the grinning face of Eli was looking right at him.

"I'm sorry; I usually try to keep the collateral damage to a minimum." He stated. "But in order for me to do my job, sacrifices must be made. Die."

Eli took an energy blade and stabbed him right in the chest. He kept the flow of air restricted so the driver wouldn't scream or shout for help, and also to keep the blood loss to a minimum; he didn't want to get it all over his clothes and in the car he was going to be sitting in for the next couple of hours. The smell tended to get on your nerves after a while.

As soon as Eli was sure the man was dead, he shoved him in the passenger seat and started the car.

---

Norita walked out of the restaurant after what he felt was a successful meeting.

For the criminal underworld, things seem to have been going smoothly since Eli had supposedly gone into hiding. Epsilon's main territory was here in Japan, so with his 'disappearance', criminal types were slowly coming up from the woodwork now that there wasn't as big a risk to their lives.

Norita's car drove up on the lot right on schedule. As soon as he got in, the car started to drive off. As they rode down the street, Norita noticed that there was another person in the front seat, and frowned.

"Who is this?" He mumbled as he took a closer look. His eyes widened and he fell back to his seat in shock.

It was the person who he thought was driving the car, sitting lifelessly in the seat, a black blade extruding from his chest.

"If that's my driver," Norita thought, "Who's driving the car?"

"That would be me." Eli turned to face him, smiling. "Hi, Norita. Did you think I was dead?"

Norita was horrified. He thought that Eli had disappeared forever, and now he had emerged, stabbed his driver, stole his car and was driving him to who knows where.

"Well, I see that there's no need for me to explain what's going to happen to you." Eli eyes turned back to the road. "But there is one question I need to ask…"

"I have no idea who placed that bounty on you, I swear!" Norita stammered.

"Good foresight." Epsilon sighed. "No matter, I knew that you wouldn't have a clue anyway. I would suggest that you sit back and pray that you will go to heaven."

For what seemed like hours to Norita, the car rode through the streets, making sure not to drive too fast that it would arouse suspicion from others. Eli barely looked at him the entire time.

Inevitably, the car stopped, and Eli turned off the engine. "Okay, we're here."

Norita looked out of the window. For all of that driving, Eli had barely gone anywhere. They were currently at an area overlooking the city, its lights reflecting off the water below despite the rain.

"Take some time to let this view sink in while I get things ready for your execution…" Eli got out of the car.

Norita decided to take the time to calm down, taking a few deep breaths and focusing on the situation. He had hidden a gun in a compartment somewhere in the backseat. If he could catch Epsilon off guard, he could, at the very least, injure him long enough to escape. It didn't look like Epsilon was in possession of a weapon at the moment, so now was his chance.

Taking the gun out of the hidden compartment, he waited for the assassin to come back. After a few minutes, he noticed that there was no noise coming from outside that sounded like foot steps. He could only assume that Eli had hidden his weapons somewhere in the surrounding area. It would be a good time to take a break for it.

Norita grabbed the handle of the door and tried to open it, but the door wouldn't push out, despite its unlocked state. He tried the other door, but that wouldn't open either.

"You won't have too much luck trying to open these doors." Eli's voice said from wherever he was at. "Thank goodness for child-proof locks."

The assassin got back into the car a few seconds later. Water was dripping from his hair. "And if your thinking about escaping from the front door, I got something to help with that." He created another long black blade in his hand, and stabbed him right through the stomach. "That should sever your spine in two. You won't be going anywhere, not that it's really important."

Eli got back out of the car. With a chain (formed out of his energy) in his hand, he tied it to the front of the car. At the other end, he created what looked like a giant block of ice. After it had grown to a reasonable size, he hefted it up in his arms and tossed it down the side of the cliff, which went straight down into the river. It was only the fact that the brake was still on the car that kept it from plunging into the water.

Opening the door one last time, he crawled in the seat. Norita had seemingly ceased to struggle, as Epsilon predicted. The assassin thought briefly about sticking more blades in him, but decided that he wasn't particularly worth the trouble. Besides, that could kill him before he even hit the water, and that wouldn't be nearly as fun.

"Well, this is it, Norita." Eli gave his soon-to-be victim a smile. "I wish you well into your trip to the afterlife." He placed his hands on the emergency brake. "Bye."

With a click, the brake was released. Eli had to jump out of the car to avoid being dragged down to the water along with him, and barely managed to see the car go off the cliff. He walked towards the edge to see if everything went right. Even in the rain, he could see the car sink into the water. He let out a hollow laugh.

"Rest in peace, Norita Takashi." He said to himself.

The soaking rain got harder, and Eli, with his mission completed, decided that it was time to leave before people got suspicious.

---

Once again, Eli walked into the house soaking wet. Having to walk all the way home in the rain sucked big time.

"You're back." He could hear Malin over the television that was currently on. "Earlier than I expected."

"Well, I'm glad to see that you were concerned for my well being," Eli said tiredly. "You probably forgot I was gone."

"No I didn't, but I wasn't about to sit by the window pining for your return like some kind of poor lovesick schoolgirl." Malin turned off the TV and walked towards him. "I can see you weren't working in the best conditions."

Eli responded with a dry laugh. "Nope." He said. "But I'm here now, so you can stop worrying and get to…" Eli stopped when Malin slipped her arms around him in a hug. "Malin…"

"Just be quiet…" Malin said softly. It was clear that she was just as surprised by her actions as he was.

Hesitatingly, Eli returned the gesture. Social contact was something that Eli still hasn't gotten used to yet. Those were the times that he regretted living such a isolated life, but that was just how it was. If Malin only knew how much of a car wreck his life was…

After what seemed like an eternity, Malin released her hold on Eli. "Sorry about that, I just felt that you needed it." She smiled, trying to dispel the awkwardness that her actions had probably caused. Eli gave her a smile in return.

"Oh shoot, now you got me all wet." Malin looked at her clothes, which had absorbed some water.

"Really?" Eli went back to his usual confident self. "Usually I have to take my shirt off first before that happens."

Malin turned red. "THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT AND YOU KNOW IT!"

Eli just laughed as he went up the stairs before she could hurt him with one of her weapons. For the moment, he was going to enjoy himself.

---

Shikkoku: Ugh. This chapter isn't my best, but I feel it is up to par. For a while I feeling a little down, and that made it hard to write, but that is all done and over with. Next chapter is important, That's all I can say without spoiling it.

Notes:

-Nothing to note really about this chapter. Next chapter however, like I said last time, will reveal quite a lot.

Next Chapter: Malin and Eli visits someone that ends up revealing a bit more about the latter's past.

Until Next Time, Sayonara.


	8. Synthesis

Disclaimer: I don't own King of Fighters. If I did, we would _still_ be waiting for KOFXII to be released.

---

Kurai Tenshi: Keppaku

Chapter 8: Synthesis

---

_It wasn't raining at the moment, but he kind of wished it was._

_Epsilon stumbled out of the door, making sure that no one had followed him. When all seemed safe, he started to walk to the hotel where the room he was currently residing in was located. He was thankful that it was so dark out, or else there would have been the chance that someone would notice the light specks of blood on his face. Of course, it wasn't __**his **__blood…_

_It was good planning that he had the hotel that provided more than one way of getting in, so he'll have the least chance of running into someone. Of course, if he had used a shoddy old inn it would have probably worked better, but the people who had hired him offered to pay for the rooms (and it's expenses), and Eli wouldn't have refused that no matter how much the risk. He was grateful that Izumida would be willing to give him this opportunity in the first place, so it wouldn't have made a difference._

_But most of his thoughts were about what he had just done. It wasn't complicated: Just go in, kill the guy and leave. Having never saw someone die in front of his eyes before; however, it was an overwhelming experience. The smell of freshly spilt blood made him a little ill, and the sight…..he nearly blew his cover trying to leave. That image was now seared into his mind…_

_Before he even knew it, he was at the hotel room. Eli threw his coat off his body and he nearly dashed into the bathroom. Turning the water on, he washed off the trace amounts of blood off his face. He quickly stripped the bloody shirt off his body, dumped it in the trash. Thankfully, his pants were too dark to show any blood, but to prevent it from getting on the sheets, he put them away as well; he could wash them later._

_With that, the feeling of apprehension left Epsilon, replaced by exhaustion. This mission took a lot out of him, and all he wanted to do was have a nice long nap…._

---

Epsilon woke up somewhat startled. As his brain tried to adjust to his surroundings, he calmed down a bit.

"Why did I dream about that of all things?" He thought to himself. "My first assassination...The day poor Eli changed forever."

Despite the situation that led to him being an assassin, Eli always thought about that day as a high point in his life. Whether it was because of his heritage or because all the killing has screwed up his personality, he wasn't really sure anymore.

It was still a little dark out, and Eli didn't exactly feel like getting up. Shifting over, he looked to see Malin sleeping sound in her sleeping bag, a content smile on her face. Somehow, that made Eli happy and miserable at the same time. Not wanting to wake her up this early, Eli forced himself to go back to sleep for a bit.

---

"Malin, do you know how to drive?"

Epsilon rather abruptly came up with that question a few hours later, relaxing in his seat while he watched Malin fix up breakfast. He would have never would have thought that she would turn out to be a decent cook, but alas, looks were usually misleading.

"Huh? Drive?" She replied while struggling to get a package of flour open without covering herself in it. "No, I haven't gotten my license yet. How about you?"

"Obviously, carrying around a glorified name tag isn't very smart idea for an assassin." The platinum-haired boy answered. "I learned to drive a few years ago, though I don't really have a car."

"You don't? Don't hired killers usually ride around in fast, expensive cars?" Malin gave him an inquisitive look.

"You've been watching too many movies, Malin." Eli shook his head. "You need to be feared by _everyone_ for that to happen. Once you reach that status, you could be wearing a sign that had your name and address on it and no one would want to take you out. Alas, that isn't a very proactive way, especially to those assassins who rely on stuff like 'anonymity' to complete their missions."

"Considering your situation, I don't think that you know much about 'anonymity' to be talking about it like it's simple." Malin stated.

"It's not. Anonymity also kinda makes it hard for people to trust you. In order to get my name out, I had to thrust myself out there in spite of the dangers." Eli explained. "You have to start somewhere, and sometimes, you can't get by with some kind of mysterious, shadowy identity at this point. "

"Oh…I think I get it now…." Spending time with Eli, among other things, had given her a slightly better grasp of the criminal world. "Wait a minute….why was you asking me about a license for in the first place?"

"Because the place we're going to visit is quite a ways away, and I didn't think you would want to walk all the way there."

"Visit? You mean that person you wanted me to see?" Malin had a look of hesitation. "You're not introducing me to some kind of weirdo, are you?"

"Hardly. I really don't like to associate with nut-jobs unless I really have to. This is someone I've known for a long time…"

"Like who?"

"You'll see. If I tell you now, it'll ruin the surprise." Eli smirked in a way that made Malin that much more uneasy than she was before.

---

Somewhere else, Alek and Tanna were currently lounging around in their apartment, doing what some would see as a mix of doing homework, watching TV and looking up bounty reports on the Web. Tanna was currently sitting on front of the couch; going through various bounties on the websites they frequented, while her roommate-slash-boyfriend, Alek, was lying on the couch, channel surfing.

"Information's too vague….not enough money….too far away…" Tanna said to herself as she scanned through the current listings on the website. "Shit….shit….shit….way too much trouble...Ah…here's a good one."

Alek glanced over her shoulder. "'…Wanted for assault, car theft, burglary….illegal possession of a weapon….I'm not sure about this one."

"It's paying a lot of cash….and that's what we want, right, Alek?"

"We also want to live to see graduation. " The man sighed. "It's times like this I wonder if we've made the right choice…"

"Oh, be quiet. We've gone through this before. We're only doing this to help pay for school. Once we graduate, we'll never have to worry about hunting down criminals again."

"Yeah, yeah…I'm surprised there isn't any suspicion about our age."

"Well, as long as we catch bad guys, the police couldn't give two shits about our age." Tanna rolled her eyes as she closed the laptop. "Anyway, we shouldn't worry about that now. We got a lot of stuff to cover for school, so get us something to snack on, okay?"

Alek sighed and retreated to the kitchen to get something to eat. He and Tanna had known each other since middle school, and had initially gotten together as a couple in high school. College, however, was a big problem. Their families were caring but not rich, and since they didn't have any rich friends or relative to leech money out of, they had to get money fast.

One of Tanna's relatives used to be a bounty hunter, and through that she learned how to catch bounties, though at the time she didn't think much about it. She toyed with the idea and threw it out there to Alek, but he questioned the idea of risking their lives to catch hardened criminals at such a young age. Tanna reasoned that they would only do people that they considered in 'their range of expertise', and if a job was seemed too outside of their 'range', then they wouldn't do it. Alek eventually, relented on the terms that it would only last until they got out of college, at the very most.

Alek and Tanna had a very successful run so far, and what they received was enough to pay for schooling, and a nice little apartment in the city. The advent of Epsilon's bounty, it was becoming clear that this would be different than the others. The reward was huge enough that if they caught them, they would have more than enough that they wouldn't have to risk their lives anymore. But the boy was younger than them, and he didn't look all that evil, certainly not like the bounty said he was. This was way more than they should be handling, and since Kandori had (unwillingly) gotten involved, then they would definitely be in trouble, especially if he got seriously hurt (they haven't exactly told his parents that he had been hunting along with them.) Speaking of which…

"Have you heard from Kandori recently?" Alek said as he returned to the main room, snacks in hand.

"He called earlier; mentioned that he was going to be doing some questioning to a few of his 'friends' about this whole Epsilon thing." Tanna replied. "I told him not to concern himself with it, but he insisted on doing so."

"Don't you think we should do something?" Alek sat down next to her and wrapped his arm on her shoulder.

"I have faith in him enough that he'll do the right thing." The girl smiled. "He'll let us know before making any rash decisions."

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Alek could only agree with Tanna.

"Of course I am." She kissed him gently on the lips. "Now stop being pessimistic and help me with this problem…"

---

Later that morning, Eli and Malin left the house. Malin couldn't get the feeling of dread in her stomach to leave. She was basically letting Epsilon lead her to a mysterious place to meet a mysterious person and who knows what would happen after that. Her faith in Eli wouldn't wane, however. If he said whoever they were going to meet was okay, then he or she will probably be normal.

"I can't believe we have to ride on a bus." Eli complained as they rode to the location. "I almost wish I did have a sports car to ride around in…"

"Well, it was either this or walk, Eli." Malin reminded him.

"But this place takes a while to get there by foot. We'll be too tired by time we get there to do anything."

"Well, you maybe. I've trained my legs enough to run long distances, so a long walk doesn't really bother me anymore."

"Thanks for making me feel out of shape, Malin." Eli muttered. Malin only smiled at him.

A few minutes later, the bus stopped, and they got out. After a minute of walking, they finally arrived at their destination: A plain looking house. Malin looked at it with a surprised look. This is where the mystery person lived? Who was she going to meet, his grandmother?

While Malin contemplated all that, Eli knocked on the door. "I'll be there in a minute…." A female voice said through the door.

"Wait, it's a GIRL?!?" Malin confusion quickly turned to outrage. "He has a girlfriend! I should have known…." She could feel herself getting jealous.

The door opened slowly, and a figure slid into view. It was a young girl, of course, wearing a brown sweater and a short jean skirt, her legs covered in black stockings. But one of the things that stood out the most was her jet black hair that went down to her shoulders.

At first, she had a look of confusion, but it slowly turned into relief at the sight of Eli, and she proceeded to jump into his arms."ELI!!!!"

Eli stumbled back a bit from the force of the girl launching herself at him. "Haha…Yeah, I'm glad to see you too." He gently put her back down. "We're you worried?"

"You idiot. Of course I was worried." She said. "I had thought you actually died...please don't scare me like that again…"

"Don't worry….That was just a silly mistake." Eli gave her hair a quick tousle. "Oh, and this is the girl I was talking about."

Malin watched as the girl turned to her, a smile on her face. "So you're the girl that Eli's been staying with?" She bowed. "I owe you my gratitude for keeping him safe."

"Uh…thanks, I guess." Malin didn't really know what to say to this girl.

"Oh, I should really get you two inside before someone sees you." She insisted, and pushed the two of them into the house.

Once inside, Malin glanced around the house. Everything seemed to be normal; she had a neat little kitchen, a nice living room to sit around in, and not a suspicious thing to be found.

"You should be careful not to knock that over…" The girl called out suddenly. Malin turned around to see what she was talking about and found that she was standing next to a rifle that was leaning against the wall. "What the heck??!"

"Yeah…" The girl gave a nervous smile. "I usually keep that there just in case I answer the door and end up getting shot at. It shouldn't be loaded right now, but I wouldn't tempt fate either way."

That only seemed to make Malin go back to being uneasy, however, and she gave a look to Epsilon that said "You better start talking or I'm going to hurt you".

Apparently, the girl decided to spare the other anymore questions. "I'm sorry. I really should have introduced myself to you." She started. "My name is Synthesis, but most everyone just calls me Synth."

"Synthesis? What kind of parent names their daughter that?" Malin couldn't help but ask her.

"I don't really know. I guess the same kinds of parents that name their son Epsilon."

It took a moment, but Malin eventually got the hint. "Wait…You mean you and Eli are related?"

"Yep." Synth's smile never left her face. "I'm his sister."

---

"So…no-one knows anything about this Epsilon deal?" Kandori said as he spun around in his chair lazily, talking on his phone. "You've only been able to get your info from what others had told you, so I understand. Thanks for the assist anyway." He hung up and threw the cell on his bed across the room. "Damn. It doesn't get any more irritating than not having any info on a bounty."

After spending all of yesterday afternoon talking to Kasumi, Kandori had gone home and nearly forgot about the bounty. The next day, however, the thought came back to him, and he spent most of the day calling all his 'contacts', asking for any information they could give him about Epsilon, but most of them only managed to come up with either nothing, or unreliable rumors they heard 'on the street'. It was a big disappointment, especially if you needed more information on exactly who you were supposed to be hunting.

The mere fact that information has been coming through by word-of-mouth and not an official posting on a bulletin board was a sign that this wasn't someone that the police was interested in, but a man a crime boss or organization wanted to get rid of for some reason. Either way, they were offering an extraordinary amount of money, and that was hard to refuse, no matter how complacent you are with your current lifestyle.

"What are we going to do?" Kandori continued to spin around a bit. "We've never hunted down someone so young before. And he has friends; dangerous, weapon-wielding, martial-arts-loving friends." He instantly started to regret ever meeting Kasumi yesterday. She was a nice girl (and a cute one at that), but if she was friends with the person that was currently protecting Epsilon, what could he do? Either they let him go, or they turn him in and she leaves Kandori a crippled mess on the ground for making her friend upset.

"Fuck this…." Kandori got up. "I need to find this girl who's helping Epsilon hide and confront her myself." He knew that it probably wouldn't be a good idea, considering what she did to his friends, but it was worth the risk. Maybe if he heard her side of the story then it'll give him a better view of what was going on. Or he'll get the hell beaten out of him. Whatever comes first.

"Wait…where do I find her?" He suddenly realized. He had no idea where she would be at. Judging by the location where Alek and Tanna first saw them, however, he could come up with a good guess.

---

Of all of the things that could have came out of Malin's mouth that moment, the only thing she could think of is: "Sister?"

"Yes. A year and a half younger than him." Synth stated.

Malin found herself tripping over her own words. While her own previous perceived jealously of Synthesis was gone, the fact that Epsilon had kept this from her was shocking. Shocking and very infuriating.

"WHY IN THE HELL DIDN'T YOU TELL ME THAT YOU HAD A SISTER, YOU STUPID ASSHOLE!?!" Malin turned her fury on Eli, who was taken back a bit, but quickly regained her composure.

"Well, it's pretty simple." Eli coughed before continuing. "If you have a very large amount of money hanging over your head like a giant sign that says "Please Shoot Me!", and are being chased by criminals who would run over their own mother to get what they want, would you want risk having your sister threatened or kidnapped in order to try and draw me out?"

"Don't you think that question would be better for someone who isn't an only child?" Malin gave him a deadpan look.

Eli let out a long sigh. "Listen. I know I shouldn't have kept this from you, but Synth is my only family left, and I will not let anybody hurt her as long as I am still walking on this Earth. If you're upset because of that, I'm sorry, but I had to protect my sister."

Malin calmed herself down. "No…I'm sorry, Eli. I didn't mean to get so upset; I just thought you were lying when you said you trusted me."

Eli laid a hand on the blond girl's shoulder. "I do. The entire reason I brought you here was because I trusted you enough to reveal my sister to you. As far as I know, there are only three people I know now that knows about Synth, and you're one of them."

"So if she's supposed to not exist, doesn't that mean she can never leave the house?"

"Ah, no. As far as everyone is concerned, I have no connection to Eli either. This is a relatively safe part of town, so I don't really have to worry about someone hurting me unless they were really, really desperate to get my brother." Malin motioned at the gun on the wall. "Oh, that's only because I didn't expect anyone to be here today."

"Are you all by yourself?"

"Of course not. Eli lives with me, but when he got caught up in that 'incident' a few days back, he decided to hide out in a safe house till things calmed down a bit." Synthesis made her way to the kitchen. "Eli, why don't you show her around, and we'll meet in my room to talk some more?"

"I guess I could show you my room." Eli said as he went up the stairs, Malin following with enthusiasm.

Eli's room was up the stairs and to the left. It wasn't extravagantly big, but it was far from small. It was surprisingly decorated for someone like him, with various posters and stuff on the wall, and a nice sized TV sitting on a stand across from his bed. It was a little unkempt, but not as dull as Malin would have thought.

"It's boring, I admit it." Eli said as he threw a shirt lying on the bed into a basket. "I wish I could buy me a nice luxury apartment in the city, but those kinds of things draw too much attention. Not to mention that their windows are so big that it's easy for someone to fire a rocket launcher right into your room."

Malin couldn't think of an intelligent response to that, so she decided to change the subject. "Do you hide any weapons in your room?"

"Well, there's a sniper rifle that needs to have its scope fixed." Eli said casually, "But my employers usually provide me with the things I request for, in order to keep anything from being traced back to me. I can usually make stuff like knifes and blunt objects to an extent with my power, don't ask me why, but the only real weapons we have is a taser, that gun downstairs, a few handguns and a pellet gun that belongs to my sister."

"_He says that like it's perfectly normal for a teenage girl to be wielding a gun." _Malin thought to herself. "So, where's your sister's room at?"

"Right down the hall." Eli said. Malin walked over and found that Synthesis' room looked pretty good as well. It was white with black trim, but there seemed to be random spots of black that looked like paint splats on the walls. Besides the mandatory stuffed animal and the shelf full of manga (that featured the Gravitation comics that she had teased Eli about buying, though the majority contained more action and violence than love and romance), there was a neat little collection of stuff on the various stands that ranged from porcelain dolls to expensive looking crystal figures.

"_Eli must really spoil his sis with all this stuff." _Malin mused to herself, before something caught her attention.

It was a picture. Upon closer inspection, it was two kids, a girl and a boy, and their parents. Malin could only assume that it was Eli and Synth when they were younger, but the boy in the picture had black hair, not that unusual light shade that he had right now. And his eyes weren't that dull color, but looked more vibrant and lively. The parents had that graceful look them, but the father seemed to have strangely graying hair that didn't go with his young look. The mother had her hair up in some kind of tied up knot in the back of her head.

"By the way you're staring at that picture; you must have found the photo with our parents on it." Eli said from the doorway, which spooked Malin so much she nearly dropped the frame.

"Don't do that!" She hissed.

Eli just rolled his eyes. "I'm betting that you want to ask me about the hair thing, right?"

"Hair?" Malin said before realizing what he meant. "Oh, that's right. Your hair is black in this picture…."

"Yeah, yeah…I wish I could tell you that I dye my hair to get it this way, but if that was true, it would probably have fell out, considering it's not a normal color to use on human hair."

"So your hair turned that color by itself?"

"I guess. It's not like it's falling out, so I don't worry about it. I can always dye it back to normal, but I was never bothered by it." Eli tugged at his hair a bit for emphasis. "My father had the same problem as well. I assume it must be hereditary."

"I always though it made you look cute." Malin smiled.

Eli tried to hide the slight blush from his face and coughed again. "Anyway, yeah, those are my parents, Yuina Katsuo and Naoki Arata."

"But those are normal Japanese name; Why did they give you and your sister such funny ones?"

"Like I told you, I was born in Greece. At the time, my father wanted me to have a unique name because he thought it would make me 'stand out'. Mom didn't really agree with him, thought. She called me Eli because she thought it was cute. As for my sister, I don't really know what they were thinking then. I think they didn't want me to be stuck as the only child with a crappy name. My mom started calling her Synthia, but Synth doesn't like being called that."

"What did the kids think?"

"Everyone teased us for a while, but once I started beating people up, it stopped pretty quickly." Eli answered. "You'd be surprised how much trouble you could get from smashing someone's face into the window of a school-bus."

"Ouch…." Malin couldn't help but say that. It was around this time that Synth walked into the room.

"If you want, we can talk right here." She suggested, pulling out a chair. Malin sat down on it; Epsilon opted to sit on the floor, his back resting against the closed door.

Synth sat cross legged on her bed. "So, how do you like my room?"

"It certainly has a lot of unique stuff in it." Malin confessed. "Did Eli buy all of this?"

"Yep, all stuff from his various travels and stuff. He usually brings me something back, though occasionally, if he has a job that requires him to be in a house of a victim, he'll steal something from them and gives it to me."

Malin glanced at Eli. "So I've heard." She said. "If he's not there, what do you do all day?"

"I go to school, per my brother's request. Eli is a part time student, but he reached a deal with the school that he would take off for a year in order to get 'his finances in order."

"Wait, he goes to school too?"

"I need something to fall back on in the case that my assassin job runs its course." Eli spoke up. "I love my sister to death, but I don't really want to be freeloading off of her the rest of my life."

"Well, that's something I never knew about him." Malin said.

"Yep, he's pretty good, but he procrastinates a lot, so his grades aren't quite up to par yet. But I can't really say anything, because I'm guilty of that too."

"That's because you would rather spend all day reading comics or watching TV." Eli said. "You don't have an excuse, unlike me."

"How mean…." Synth pouted. "I can't help it that I get distracted sometimes."

"She nearly had to be held back last year because she was too busy going out with friends and did all of her homework on the way to school the next day…."

"That's enough, Eli!" Synth said in a desperate attempt to change the subject. "Let's talk about something else."

Malin decided that it would be a good time to try to learn some more about Epsilon. "Okay….I'll probably regret asking this, but does it ever concern you sometimes that he's going out killing people to take care of you?"

"Ah…don't worry. I knew that question would come up, eventually. Basically, my answer is like this; my daddy killed people to take care of me, and for a while, so did my mom. I understand the reason they do it, and I definitely understand the reason why my brother does it. It doesn't bother me at the least." Synth said in the most serious way she could say without losing her kind tone. "It's a strange thing to wrap your head around, understandably. You've been kind of thrown into this thing with no real knowledge of what's been going on for the most part."

"Well, I have tried asking, but your brother has been ducking my questions."

Synth gave her brother a glance. "Well, Malin, that _is_ kind of a sensitive subject. In order to get a better understanding, you'll need to know how my brother became an assassin in the first place, and I can tell you right now, it's not a very happy tale." Her face turned into sort of a frown. "Just thinking about what has happened the past few years….It's been a while now, but I still have trouble talking about it."

Malin cringed inwardly at the grim turn the conversation took. Maybe she had gotten to personal with her questioning. Synth noticed it however and immediately returned to her bright self.

"Like I said before, don't worry about it. We'll be willing to tell you everything in due time. For now, just enjoy yourself." She said. "It's not often we get a visitor that we don't have to lie about ourselves to. The fact that Eli was willing to let you meet me means that he thinks very highly of you, Malin."

"He does, doesn't he?" Malin resisted the urge to blush.

"Yep. And that's pretty special, considering how he freezes when he is with girls…" Synth continued.

"That's coming from the girl with no boyfriend." Eli interrupted. "The closest you got to relationship is eying the boy that sits five seats down from you in your science class and him smiling back."

"At least I show an interest in boys! You got hugged by a girl in middle school and you almost fainted!"

"You brought a Valentines Day gift for a boy at school, but when you were about to give it to him, you chickened out and said you brought it for me!"

And so, like siblings do, they started to argue, leaving Malin to watch in relative interest.

---

After a few hours with Synthesis that consisted of her showing Malin the rest of the house, a light lunch, more arguments between Synth and her brother and a healthy amount of TV watching, Malin had opted to leave the two to discuss personal matters while she went home. Since she knew the way to her house, and the sun was still out, she decided to walk home.

Halfway there, however….

"Excuse me, miss." A voice said from behind her. Malin turned to see a boy that looked sort of familiar…

"Uh…yes?" Malin responded.

"You wouldn't happened be Malin, would you?"

"_Someone recognizes you! It must be a fan!" _Malin smiled brightly. "Of course! I'm the infamous girl herself!"

"_Finally. That's the last time I do something as stupid as search for a girl in a crowded city." _Kandori thought in relief. "I was looking for you, because I wanted to talk to you about Epsilon."

Malin's face went from happy to 'Oh shit!" in a second. "I knew it. You're after that bounty too, I guess. Well, you're going to have to go through me." She sent a sharp, unfriendly look towards Kandori.

"Actually, that's not what I'm here for. I'm not concerned about the bounty; I just want to know what the hell is going on that someone like him has such a high amount of money on his head."

"Wait…you mean you don't know why?" Malin had assumed that everybody knew that he was an assassin, but apparently that wasn't the case.

Kandori shrugged. "Nope. Nothing besides the obvious."

She didn't really know what to do at that point. If she told them that Eli was an assassin, then they would probably go ahead and capture them. Though, they were bounty hunters, so they probably wouldn't be willing to go after a dangerous criminal so rashly. Suddenly, the proverbial light bulb lit up in her mind.

"How about you fight me for it?" She suddenly asked.

"What?"

"If you beat me, I'll tell you what you need to know, but if I beat you, you leave Eli alone."

"Eli? Wait…you want me to fight you? I'm not just some random person on the street; I do have some experience in fighting." Kandori said.

"Maybe. In all honestly I haven't been in a real fight in a good while, and since you decided to stick your nose in my business, I decided that you would be good for a little sparring session."

The boy let out a loud sigh. "I knew this would happen." He resigned himself to the idea that he was going to have to fight her for information. "Alright, I accept." He said. "Where do you want to fight?"

"I know a place that won't have a lot of people in it. Follow me." And with that, Malin took off. Kandori just shook his head and followed her.

---

Shikkoku: It took me about a good 43 days to make this chapter, kinda fast. I still might edit this chapter further if I find anything that needs to be changed, but priority no. 1 will be KOFNB till Act 1 is finished.

Notes:

_-Please don't give me any grief about Synthesis's name. I had made this stuff way before I knew that giving OCs funny names wasn't the right thing to do._

_-Speaking of names, Eli's explanation about his name was just something I threw out there at the last minute to try to make it more plausible. Same with Eli's hair, but there is something else to blame for that…._

_-I'm sure that the little interlude with Alek and Tanna seemed kinda pointless, but since they ended up being more important to the plot than I initially intended them to be, I thought it would be better if I gave them some background._

_-And as for Malin's little request for a match against Kandori, for a story that's in the King of Fighters section of the site, there sure hasn't been a lot of actual combat in it._

One last thing to note is that I went back and edited some of the older chapters a bit. Nothing that really sticks out, though (with the exception of that I made Eli's conversation with Rikuto in the last chapter a bit more longer, since that ties in with something else I'm planning to start soon.)

Next Chapter: Malin and Kandori fight, Eli makes his visit back to Izumida and gains some new info, and his true enemy finally emerges…

Until Next Time, Sayonara.


	9. Enemy of Epsilon

Disclaimer: KOF is the sole property of SNKPlaymore.

Shikkoku: Let it be known that this story is not dead. Other than that, his chapter is a bit violent.

* * *

Kurai Tenshi: Keppaku

Chapter 9: Enemy of Epsilon

* * *

Kandori looked around at the grassy area where Malin had taken him. It was actually an area under one of the overpasses that ran through the city, and it looked empty enough for them to fight without interruption.

"So, are you ready?" Malin interrupted his brief haze. "I don't have all day, you know."

"Uh...yeah." He didn't really know what to do; Kandori wasn't very experienced with fighting, but if he wanted to confront Epsilon, he needed to do this. "Okay, let's go."

Before Kandori had a chance to even cultivate a strategy, Malin was flying right toward him, bladed weapon in hand. He jumped back in surprise, only suffering a minor nick on his shirt.

"I'm up heeeerreeee!" Malin sailed down from the sky and kicked him in the chest. Kandori hit the ground, but was back up on his feet quickly.

_What the hell have I gotten myself into?_ Kandori thought just before he dodged another attack._ This girl's a psycho! What kind of girl has so many weapons?_

"What's wrong with you? You asked for this fight, so stop jerking around!" She swung out with a roundhouse and he nearly shrieked in pain.

"_Did you hide a blade in your shoe?"_ He shouted as he instinctively covered the fresh cut. "What's wrong with you?"

"Oh. Whoops." Malin shrugged, noting that she needed to get her hidden blade fixed so it would stop popping out at the wrong time.

Kandori was starting to wonder if he had made a bad decision by agreeing to this fight. He could deal with mere thugs, but people like her—ones who can easily defeat martial artists with way more experience than he had-was a completely different story.

"Think fast!"

Kandori quickly snapped out of it and ducked a yo-yo that was flying towards his face. "Gah!." When he managed to get a better look at them, he noticed there were blades in that too. And slowly, regret started to form in his head.

* * *

"Hello, Izumida's office? How can I help you?"

"It's Epsilon."

"Epsilon? Oh! He's been expecting you. I'll patch him in right now…"

"Eli! What are you doing?" Synthesis called from the living room.

"I'm trying to get a hold of Izumida. He owes me some information about my bounty." Eli replied back "He claims that it's not much, but as you see, I need all of the help I can get."

"Well, I hope it's worth it. I'm not really fond of you leaving me alone for so long." Synth responded, "I know you're protecting me but…"

"I wish I could. Unfortunately, I'm slowly cracking as it is, and you getting hurt because of me would absolutely destroy my remaining sanity…." Eli stopped when he heard someone pick up.

"Epsilon, I was wondering when you'd get back with me." Izumida sounded pleased. "I heard about Norita's death. Very well done, as always."

"Thank you, Izumida. Now, what kind of stuff do you have to give?"

"Something quiet significant, as I discovered soon after I talked to you yesterday. Apparently, the person who posted it seems to be connected to a previous 'target' of yours."

"Target? So this whole thing is an attempt to get revenge on me for someone I killed, huh?" Eli wasn't surprised by that idea. "Well, as long as it narrows down the candidates, I'm fine with whatever you do. Have you got a name yet?"

"They mostly use fake ones when communicating online, but most of the time, they'll use the same alias on multiple places. I got a list that could tell me who's who, just let me bring it up on this computer and I might get something out of it. Hold on for a bit."

"Alright." Eli put the phone down for a second.

"Did he get anything?" Synth asked him as her brother sat down next to her.

"He's trying to see if he can get a name of the person who posted the bounty. If that happens, then it could be as simple as locating him and putting holes in various parts of his body. If he's dead, then there can't be anyone to pay the money, the bounty will become worthless and I'll be off scot free."

"I hope things will be that simple."

"It probably won't. For all I know, I'll have to bust into whatever HQ this person shuts himself in, mow down a bunch of his men, break into his office and put a bullet in his head. I'll just have to see."

"But if it does come to something like that, you think I can I come with you just this once?" Synth said with a pleading look that would be more suited for someone her age if she was trying to get a boy to get her a stuffed animal. "I want to beat the hell out of him too."

"Sorry, that would be _way_ too dangerous. But don't worry, all of the pain we suffered he's going to experience ten-fold..."

* * *

Somewhere else in town, a grey car was slowly rolling down the intersection. Inside, four people were sitting inside, patiently waiting for the moment to attack.

"God damn it, Jirosai. We've been sitting here for an hour!" One person said from the backseat. "Aren't we there yet?"

"You keep asking me that and I keep telling you no." The person in question said without taking his eyes off the road. "I made it clear that the drive would be a long one, so be patient."

"So, what are we supposed to be doing at Izumida's residence anyway?"

"Ensuring that our plan goes on for a little bit longer, of course. I can't have Izumida revealing everything to Epsilon. There are some things he needs to find out for himself." The car finally pulled up to the house. "And here we are. You guys have the plan memorized, right?" Everybody else nodded, "Good. Let's get this over with. I don't want to be here any long than I need to."

Jirosai jumped out of the car, the other three men following behind him. They had made it to the front door when another man—most presumably a bodyguard—blocked their path.

"Mr. Izumida is busy right now, so if you would please…"

Jirosai pulled out a gun and calmly shot him in the head, complete with a spray of blood that came from behind him. "Got that out of the way. Go see if there's anyone else there that needs to be 'taken care of', then we'll go see Izumida."

A few seconds passed. "That's all the protection he has? Someone's gotten a bit too relaxed, has he? I'll make sure he regrets that."

They went straight toward the room where Izumida was currently looking up info."Who are you? How did you get in here?"

"I won't bother answering the last question, but I will give you a hint. Does the name "Ichirin01101" ring a bell to you?"

"Not really…"

Jirosai was slowly losing his patience. "Try harder to remember."

"Wait a minute…." Izumida looked at the computer screen. One of the bounty listings for Epsilon was listed there. And the poster's name was 'Ichirin 0110'. "This is your name, so this could mean that…."

"Yes, that screen name belongs to me..."

"So it's you who posted that bounty on him? But why…no, I think I know why." Izumida had been around long enough to be able to guess a man's motives for specific actions. "This is about your brother, isn't it Jirosai?"

A long, tense silence passed between them. Jirosai expressionlessly signaled for his men to hold him down.

"So I'm right, I presume."

"Be quiet, old man." He noticed the phone that was on the table. "Is that…Epsilon on the line?" Izumida didn't answer, so Jirosai assumed he was probably right. Quickly he picked up the phone and processed what he had been planning to say since he got up that morning.

"Hello, Epsilon?" He said in a rather straightforward manner, trying not to sound too suspicious.

"Hey…wait, who is this?" Epsilon sounded confused. "You don't sound like Izumida."

"Izumida is a little busy." Jirosai inwardly winced at his bad pun, "But it's not too bad, since he'll be leaving very shortly anyway."

"Leaving, what do you mean? Let me catch him quick before he leaves! He still owes me some info!" Eli said somewhat desperately.

"Okay, let me give the phone to him." He motioned his men to let him go. "Alright, here you go. If you want to tell him about me, you better do it quickly."

Izumida quickly grabbed the phone and didn't waste time in spilling the beans. "Eli! Listen to me…The person that posted that bounty, I just found out his identity…"

Jirosai casually pulled out a gun from the inside of his jacket.

"His name is…" *Bang!*

"Right in the throat." Jirosai holstered his gun back and walked towards the writhing form of Izumida, and he could hear the alarmed voice of Epsilon through the bloodstained phone that lay on the floor.

* * *

Eli was just about to finally have a name to his mysterious enemy when he heard the pop come through the speaker. "Izumida!" He said worriedly, "Hey, Izumida! What's going on?"

"I'm sorry, it seemed Izumida has suddenly lost the ability to speak." The voice from before finally said, "Such a shame too."

It was obvious what had just happened; Izumida had been silenced by someone, and Epsilon knew why. "…You…you're the one responsible…"

"Responsible for what? If it's that bounty that you're talking about, then you are absolutely right. I'm the one that put my own money up so I can have your hide."

"So it _is_ you…" Eli stayed calm despite his growing anger; blowing a fuse would only give his enemies more satisfaction. "So you decided to show yourself to me at the expense of Izumida's life?"

"He's not dead. Well, actually…" There was a short pause before another gunshot rang through the phone, "Okay, _now _he's dead, so go ahead and finish."

"When I get my hands on you, I'm going to gut you. You're aware of that right?"

"I'm not that easy to find right now, so you might as well give up on that notion for the time being. When the time comes, I'll reveal myself to you. That is, if you last that long. Or to be more precise, you and that girl that's taken you in her custody. I'll admit, from what I've seen, she is rather cute."

"If your issue is with me, then you'll stay Malin out of it…"

"Malin? That girl from KOF, right? You don't need to worry; I have no intention of harming her." "Unfortunately, I can't say the same for the bounty hunters that are after you, especially since they see her as your accomplice now. Might want to keep a closer eye on her, Epsilon."

There was a soft sound of laughter before the line went dead. Eli wordlessly hung up the phone.

"Eli?" The sound of Synthesis' worried voice broke him out of his trance. "What happened to Izumida?"

He gave his sister a defeated look. Synth was smart enough to know that something had gone terribly wrong. "Synth, it looks like I'll have to split sooner than I had expected. Something came up, Izumida's dead and now I have to go find Malin before she gets hurt because of me." Eli quickly put his jacket on. "I need you to barricade yourself for the time being in this house. For a day or so, okay?"

"Eli..." Synthesis' mood began to sour. She was hoping for some more time with her brother after all this time, but nothing seemed to go as planned.

He brought her into a hug. "It's going to be fine. I'll end this soon, I promise." "I'll protect you, no matter what. I love you."

"I love you too, Eli…"

Epsilon let go and quickly ran out of the back door of the house, over a fence and into an alleyway to make sure that he wasn't spotted by any potential attackers.

_Shit…Izumida's dead. His family is probably going to be up in my ass because of this._ His sole trustworthy contact was gone, and with that, the only person left was Rikuto who was still on his way there. But his top priority right now was to find Malin.

_

* * *

_

"Are you ready to give up yet?"

Kandori barely had time to say 'no' before he dodged another attack with her knife. _What the heck is up with this girl? She's nuts!_ He didn't have any experience fighting opponents this experienced in fighting, and it was starting to show. _Looks like I have to take out my trump card._

He rolled out of the way of Malin's next attack and started to reach behind his back, but before he could take his weapon out, Malin gave him a good shove to provide a bit of space..

"It's been a while since I've fought someone so weak." Malin took out a yo-yo. "So I'll say again: are you going to give up, or do I have to torture you some more?"

Kandori cringed when razors shot out of the yo-yo, but knew that he had his opportunity. "I'm not a person that quits just like that." He gasped.

"That's too bad."

"Yeah, for you."

Malin felt something cut the ground from under her and she found herself on the ground. "Wha-? But how did you…."

"You're not the only one who dabbles with weapons." Kandori took out a long black stick. It looked more like a cane one used to assist with walking, but in his hands, it was a pretty effective weapon. "As a bounty hunter, being able to defend yourself is a must."

"With that thing? Either you're very skilled or the people you chase are really dumb."

"Maybe that is true, but you're stronger than any mere crook, so I suppose the best I can do is try to hold you off as long as I can." Kandori skillfully leapt towards Malin, hoping that he could do as little damage as possible. But before he could land a blow, she countered with her own device, one of her stun rods.

"You forgot who exactly you are fighting." Malin pushed Kandori off of her. Soon enough, they started to fence with their respective weapons. It was starting to become obvious that neither of them were taking this fight to seriously anymore.

"Ah, so I see you do have a bit of skill to you after all! Where you learn this, beating back the angry schoolgirls whenever you run out of copies of Shoujo Beat?" Malin jested.

"You could say that. Those girls get a bit fierce if they don't get their monthly amount of sappy romance manga." Kandori went along with Malin's joke.

They continued to clash weapons for a few more moments before Kandori found himself being tripped once again. He wasn't an experienced fighter, and he was starting to get exhausted from all of the moving and such. Malin, on the other hand…

"Now then, it looks like I've won this match." She was standing over him, a giant hammer in her hands that hadn't been there a few seconds ago. "Now, Malin winds up for the dramatic finish…"

Kandori doubted that Malin would really swing the hammer right onto him, but that didn't matter much since she froze a few seconds afterward. "Eli?"

Both of them saw Epsilon running through the streets, but he was far enough that he didn't really see him. Malin could tell something was wrong though.

"I suppose this will have to be a draw." Malin put away her hammer to who only knows where. "Maybe we can settle this later, okay?" Malin gave him a deep apologetic bow before she dashed off after him. Kandori laid there dumbfounded for a few seconds before getting up and dusting himself off.

"Damn. Well, at least I made some progress. Maybe I should follow them." Looking at the time on his phone, he realized that he had a good two and a half hours for him to get home, bandage his wound and go to work today. "Well I can scratch that."

Hiding his cane in his jacket, Kandori begrudgingly headed home. He, Alex and Tenna would just have to approach this from another course of action.

* * *

"ELI! Where are you going?" Epsilon heard Malin shout behind him as he got closer to her home. He was generally surprised that he made it all the way there without stopping.

"We need to get back inside…" Was the only think he could get out.

Finally, they both made it into the house, and Eli collapsed onto the floor. "Need to work on stamina...Assassins….usually have better…resilience…." He panted.

"What the heck is going on?" Malin complained, "Did something happen at the house? Is your sister alright? Is…"

"Synth is fine." Eli stopped Malin's stream of questions with that line. After a few moments to catch his breath, he added. "The person that assigned my job the other day has been killed by the person that posted my bounty."

Malin struggled to find the right thing to say after news like that. "Oh…well…That's a good thing, right?" The words came out somewhat awkwardly.

"I-I suppose. It certainly does make find him easier, but still, if he knows what's going on, then I can't really be seen in public at the moment till my friend comes to provide back up."

"So you're stuck here?" Malin frowned. Eli looked like he was starting to feel more at home here and then this had to happen. She hated seeing him in such a worried state.

"No, Malin, _We're_ stuck here. Don't you see, it's apparent that the people who want my bounty see you as my associate now, he said so himself. If you go out, the chance that you could be attacked is way too great for my comfort."

Malin put a hand on her head. She understood why Eli was concerned, but this was a bother sometimes. "So, we can't go out at all? There's no way I'm doing that."

"But there's people who won't hesitate to kill you. Listen, I understand that you feel happy, but I already have one death on my head, and I don't think I can deal with it if you got hurt because of my negligence."

Malin blinked a bit. "Uh, Eli?"

The assassin gave her a confused look, until he realized that in the mist of his ranting, he had placed his hands on Malin's shoulders. While it wasn't the most inappropriate gesture one can do, Eli lifted her hands up as if he had put them on a hot stove.

"Okay, okay, how about this?" He said, trying to change the subject and hide his embarrassment. "We stay here for all of tomorrow, then the day after that, we'll do anything that you want to do, alright?"

Malin thought about it for a few good moments. "That's sounds great! Alright, we'll coop ourselves in this house for a day or so. Thankfully we have enough food for tomorrow." She agreed all too easily. As much as she didn't feel like being trapped in the house, Malin knew that this time alone had the potential to be useful. Maybe she could her try to get Eli to open up a bit more to her about himself…

"Uh…Malin? Why do you have that suspicious look on your face?"

"Huh? What look?" She feigned innocence, but Eli knew better.

"That 'I'm agreeing with Epsilon because I've have something planned for him' look!"

"Hey! You think I'm planning something? Don't you trust me?"

Eli gave her a flat look in response. "With my life, yes. Anything else, not so much."

Malin resisted the urge to smack him. "Whatever. It's not going to hurt you to stay for a day or so. Have fun with it!" She beamed right at him, which only proved to make Eli even less certain. "Anyway, you should calm down and get your head straight." She returned his earlier gesture and placed her hands on his shoulders. "I promise that I'll help you get through it.

Eli sighed and nodded slowly. "Okay, I'm a bit better now. I think this thing just caught me off guard." Eli remembered something. "I just realized; you had gone out before I did, so why were you the one following me all the way home? Did something happen?"

Knowing that admitting that she encountered a bounty hunter would make this situation worse for Eli, Malin just waved her hands and said, "Oh, just some fan that wanted my autograph. I AM a pretty popular fighter, you know." Eli started to snicker. "What are you laughing for?"

Eli took a moment to calm down quickly. "Hahaha…I'm sorry, but I found that amusing for some reason."

"Okay then, since you're obviously feeling better, then how about we go out back and spar for a bit, okay?" Malin's smile was still on her face, but Eli could sense the evil intentions in her voice.

"Er...Actually, I think I'm going to watch TV for a…" Before Eli had a chance to leave, Malin grabbed him by the collar and started to drag him to the backyard.

"Oh no, no, no, I think you're getting a bit complacent. Besides, you said you needed to get some more stamina, right?" She said casually, but Eli knew that he was going to be sore for the rest of the day after this. For a brief time, he wished that he had stayed at Synth's house for another few hours.

* * *

Shikkoku: *Sigh* That went well.

So…I don't really like just hand-waving my absence, but the story about why I went so long without updating Kurai Tenshi isn't very interesting or very satisfying to anyone, even myself. Let's just say it's been a long year.

_Notes:_

_- Jirosai, as you know, is the antagonist. While his reasons might seem a bit obvious after his conversation with Izumida, I'll just say that his motivations for placing that bounty aren't as clean and simple as it might first appear._

_- I'm going back to clean up and re-work parts of the first few chapters, hopefully to make it a bit more consistent. I also have a better idea on how Eli's power works exactly, so I'll make that clearer as well. All things considered, I'd have to redo all of them anyway, seeing as I need to put new scene dividers on them now that the old ones I usually use don't appear in my stories anymore. *Sighs again*_

In other news, I have the first chapter of the new NB story written, but I'll probably post that a bit later, so keep a look out. Please review if you wish.

Next Chapter: Epsilon and Malin spend the entire day stuck at her house. What evil plans does she have for our favorite silver-haired assassin?

Until Next Time, Sayonara.


	10. Inexpressive

Disclaimer: I don't own KOF, but if I did, I would force the writing crew to try and remake the NESTS saga with a much more satisfying ending.

How long has it been? Two years? Er….Shit.

\ \ \

Kurai Tenshi

Chapter 10: Inexpressive

/ / /

_Eh…none of this stuff is any use to me if I can't cook._ Eli frowned as he closed the fridge.

It was early in the morning. As Malin was taking her morning shower, Epsilon, not wanting to be anywhere near her room when she got out, decided to look for something that will satiate his hunger for the time being.

Assassinating could be a pain, but if one good thing that came out of that situation, it was that it gave him an excuse to never learn how to cook anything complicated. His diet pretty must consisted solely of vending machine food and take out, and most of the time, he ate just enough so the burning sensation in his stomach would go away and he could concentrate on his job. Synthesis had to teach herself how to cook just so her brother wouldn't die from malnutrition.

If need be, he can cook for himself, but Japanese breakfasts can be quite a pain for him sometimes. So far, all he managed to find was a box of…something, some soybeans, a few pieces of pork, and some leftover cabbage.

Eventually, Malin went down the steps, dressed in loose blue shorts and a white tee; Her hair still damp from the shower. "You're not about to try and cook with just that, are you?" Malin asked as he walked over to the kitchen counter where Eli had dumped all the food he found.

"I think…I think I might be able to work with this." Eli looked at the spread he laid out. "Maybe with a little soy sauce, I could-"

"No!" Malin shoved him out of the way, "Let me handle this. Something tells me whatever you were planning probably would be considered a biological weapon in some states."

Eli opted not to comment, choosing to take a seat by the table. As the sounds of cooking food started to permeate the room, he stared aimlessly out the window as he tried to reconcile what had happened yesterday.

He had gotten his first real assignment in quite a while in exchange for potential information on his mark, but said mark ended up being one step ahead of him and proceeded to murder one of the few contacts he undoubtedly trusted. Now here he was, too paranoid to leave the house, with a girl that he still didn't know that well, trying to regain a sense of sanity in the 12-car pileup that was his life.

_The road is cruel… _Eli thought to himself, wondering what was in store for him from his blonde friend. He liked her, he really did, but there was still the fact that she was a very pretty girl, and Epsilon wasn't especially well versed with the ways of women that wasn't his sister. He was grateful that Malin treated him like any other person and not as some weirdo or a hot boy that she took in solely to try and have her way with him.

"Ha-ha! Once again Malin amazes you with her awesome cooking prowess, am I right!" Malin slid a plate of food in front of the starving assassin, who scarfed it down without any thought of etiquette whatsoever. "So…." She continued, "…are you feeling better after yesterday?"

"A little." The assassin replied, "I suppose I got a bit too antsy yesterday. Sorry about that."

She shook her head slightly. "You don't have to apologize to me for anything…"

"But I do. An assassin should be able to handle stuff like this. I shouldn't have got all panicky and stuff." He continued to eat. "It wouldn't look good if clients thought I ran away at the first sign of trouble. Stuff like that doesn't really extol confidence from them."

"Hey, that's just what I was taught." He took another bite, "You know, I'm glad I got stuck with someone who can cook well, because to be quite honest, I can't do it for shit."

Epsilon was obviously trying to steer the conversation away from his violent life for the time being; Malin decided to go along with it. Trying to get him to open up might be easier if she eased him into it. "You don't know how to cook?" She continued to eat.

"I can make a few things, but I live off junk, mostly." Eli replied, "I don't really have much time to cook, obviously, so I just live off of junk food and microwavable stuff. It's just easier that way."

Malin looked him over. If he really ate that so often, then it's a miracle he hadn't gave himself a heart attack from all of that fat. She assumed having to run from people all day can be good for his metabolism.

"You make a half-decent breakfast, Malin." Eli said, "Maybe you can work as some kind of short order cook if that whole fighting thing doesn't work out for you."

Malin opted to not throw her fork at him. "I'll stick with what I'm good at, thank you very much."

"So what's first up on the agenda?" Eli asked as soon as they were finished with breakfast. "Do you want to spar for a little bit?"

"I don't really feel much like fighting…" Malin yawned, "Let's just watch some TV for now."

"Meh, I guess." Eli wasn't one for weekday morning television to be honest. "So what's on at this time of day?"

"Silver Slasher! The knife wielding hero of justice." Malin announced proudly. "It's just so happens that they're doing a marathon today of the Hedonistic Elemental Schoolgirls arc."

"Uhhhh…." He never heard of that show, and it sounded ridiculous just by her description alone, but he didn't have much else to do. "Fine. It might be decent."

_An hour later…_

"Okay, so this guy has been fighting bunch of girls with elemental powers, because one of them had been attacking guys in his school, you know? So he sneaks in, and when he starts questioning them, they get aggressive, because it's a girls only school and they assume any man in there is some creepy pervert, so they start using their elemental powers to try and take them down, but then Somori, the girl that has a crush on him but he doesn't know it and she won't admit it starts going insane after he falls on this one girls chest and…"

"This is the stupidest shit I've ever seen…" Eli muttered. The entire show was nothing but overused tropes and inane character types. "Isn't there something else we can be watching at the moment?"

"Yes, but _I _want to watch _this._ Be grateful that there are only 3 more hours of this left." Malin smirked, and Eli just groaned as the incredibly annoying theme song started up again.

\ \ \

Jirosai Toska exited the car and took a deep breath as he looked at the run-down building that stood in front of him. The meeting place was nothing more than a rusty old warehouse, but that was the only location in the area that they could come up with in such short notice. After his little trip yesterday, the police was on high alert for anymore gang activity. In hindsight, Jirosai figured he could have tried to frame Epsilon as Izumida's murderer, but the deaths of crime bosses didn't get much attention if civilians were involved, and Epsilon would have probably slipped away till the police stopped caring.

"Jirosai, don't you think this is going a bit overboard?" A younger man next to him asked. He had a bit of short, spikey blonde hair on his head.

"Nothing great has ever been accomplished without the risk of failure present." Jirosai stated calmly, "In order to take care of someone as crafty as Epsilon, we'll need something more substantial than thugs with guns."

"If that's the case, then I hope you picked some good ones, because this might be quite the battle we're about to wage."

"I never come to battle without the right weapon, Takuhi." They entered the place, and Jirosai noticed a somewhat unwelcome surprise. "Why are they're only _four of them?"_

"Four? I called in a lot more people than that!" Takuhi stated, "I had a whole two pages of numbers, and I called ALL of them personally!"

"Be that as it may, there are still only FOUR people here, Takuhi." Jirosai's tone didn't waver, but Takuhi could tell that he was irritated. "What happened to the rest of them?"

Takuhi was about to try and contact someone to get an answer when one of the people there, a tall, brown haired main wearing a dress shirt and slacks, cleared his throat. "I think I might have the answer..."

Jirosai looked at him. "And you are?" He asked.

"Name's Gokuchi, but anyway, From what I heard, one of them got arrested for drunk driving, two of them are in jail for starting a shootout at a restaurant yesterday, and I think the big guy next to me killed the last guy in the back of this building…" He stated, pointing to a huge, muscular man that towered over him.

"I don't take kindly to those who mock me." Was all that he said. "Smartass thought he could try and cheap shot me, but I showed him that I take punches real good."

"Okay, and what's your name?"

"Sosaira, bodyguard and hitman for hire. Once I get my hands on you, it's all over, and ain't no one been able to get out of my grip yet." He said.

"Of course, that might be because your stench sucks the strength right out of them. Phew!" A younger man waved his hands in front of his face. "What, you can't fit in a shower or something? Geez!"

"Watch your mouth, kid."

"Anyway, my name is Mozuki, the man who's about to be the next big thing in the crime biz!" Mozuki pushed the sunglasses up on his black hair. His casual clothes and arrogant demeanor just screamed of someone who had no idea what they were really getting into.

"'Crime Biz?" Jirosai frowned, "You look like you haven't even gotten out of high school yet. But I suppose you must have some skill if you're willing to face Epsilon. Anyway…er, miss?"

The last person was actually a girl, which wouldn't be any big deal for him. Unfortunately, this girl was currently on her cell phone, texting some one in the middle of what was supposed to be a serious meeting. Her hair was mostly brown, but it had a stark strip of green going down her right side bang.

"Ooooh. Shit, I didn't know you were here!" She made a few more texts before putting her phone away, "KuroGenesis."

"Wait, that's supposed to be your name?" Takuhi spoke up.

"Yep. If I told you my real name, you better either be dying or sleeping with me; because that's the only way I'll share it with you."

"I suppose this is the best we can get for now." Jirosai didn't want to deal with this much longer, "So, you know why we called you, right?"

"That Epsilon kid, right?" Sosaira answered, "I heard that he has quite a big bounty on his head thanks to you."

"Of course. But unfortunately, things aren't going the way I had initially hoped."

"How? This is some punk kid, why would it be so difficult to deal with him."

"Gokuchi, he's not a kid, he's an expert assassin. Most people who've tried ended up coming back severely maimed, or just don't come back at all. The guy who got the closest to catching him ended up as an unidentifiable corpse rotting in an alleyway, and the second closest got murdered in his own home. He's scared off quite a lot of people who would otherwise be salivating for a chance at this much money, so I need some people who are sure to get the job done."

"Soooo….what this boils down to is this: Epsilon is so badass that not even massive amounts of money can get people to catch him? Sounds tough."

"Quite. But that's why I have you here. I've decided to hang up the bounty for now, and do something different. Basically, that money will go to the first one who gets him to me ALIVE." Jirosai said, "And the key word being 'Alive'. We have some things to settle, and I can't do that if he's dead. Got it?" Everyone nodded, "Good. Now, he's currently hiding with this girl called Malin…"

"Did you say 'Malin'?" KuroGenesis suddenly blurted out, "That's the girl from KOF!"

"Huh?" Jirosai hadn't kept up with the King of Fighters tournament as of late; the past few had all seemed a bit...boring. He scoped his mind to see which one the girl was referring to before realizing it. "Oh, the girl with the giant hammer?"

"Yep! She's pretty awesome if you ask me!" KuroGenesis bounced in excitement.

"I'm hoping that this isn't going to make you hesitant if the time comes, right?" Jirosai asked, but KuroGenesis just shook her head.

"Not a chance. If I have to beat the shit out of her to get that cash, then I won't even blink. A job is a job." She had a huge smile on her face.

"I doubt you'll be able to accomplish such a feat, little girl." Gokuchi smugness was evident with his remarks, "This isn't the kind of thing some middle schooler should be caught up in…"

"I'm NINETEEN, you bottom-feeding dipshit!"

"You're hostile towards one another. Good; makes me know that you'll work all that harder to beat each other to the target." Jirosai stated, and then decided that he should continue. "Anyway, he's hiding with her somewhere. I don't have a clue where she lives, and going to her house would make too much commotion, so I'm hoping that by taking down this bounty, we can lure him out with a false sense of security."

"How are we going to know who he is?"

"If you see Malin, it'll probably be him that is tagging along for the ride. If he goes out alone, it's unlikely you'd know about it. With that, I believe that should be it for the more essential specifics about him. The rest will be explained by Takuhi."

"Right," Takuhi stepped forward, "Once you capture Epsilon, you are to inform us immediately. Don't torture him, don't dilly dally around, and if I find out you're attempting to extort money from him in exchange for letting him go, I swear I'll come over there and kill you myself. The moment we receive him, you'll get the money on the spot."

"What about that girl, or anyone else that might be present when we find him."

Laughing, Takuhi just shrugged. "Do as you wish. As long as it doesn't get traced back to us, we could care less what you do to her or anyone else. Just don't screw up, or you'll be shit out of luck with us."

"Alright. Now that we've gotten our message across, I'll leave it to you to decide your course of action. Farewell."

As the two men departed, the rest was left to figure out exactly how they were going to try and attempt such a task. To say that there was any hesitation or misgivings from them would be a total fallacy.

"Welp, looks like I'll be seeing you three losers later. Feel free to look me up once I made my money, I could always use someone to scrub the floors in my apartment." Gokuchi waved a hand up in there as he headed out.

"I doubt you two kids will be much trouble. Looks like that cash is as good as mine." Sosarai lumbered off in the other direction, leaving Mozuki and KuroGenesis alone in the warehouse.

"Woooo! Looks like this is going to be a wild ride!" KuroGenesis seemed to be a bit more hyped than any normal person should who'd just been ordered to try and catch a brutal killer. S

/ / /

"Booooooring."

"Shut up already. I had to sit through that mess you call a show, you'll sit through this and like it."

After enumerable amounts of gratuitous violence, Epsilon finally was free of Silver Slasher's grasp. As a bit of a punishment, he was now playing through a relatively unknown shooter much to Malin's disinterest.

"I think the aiming in this game is a bit on the lax side." Eli said as he performed his fourteenth headshot in a row, "guns like that usually takes a bit of effort to maintain steadiness, this game makes it a bit too easy to snipe someone in the head from far away." He blew away another thug, "Not to mention it doesn't do a good job of accounting for distance, wind, enemy moment and…"

"Why do I have the feeling that you got your assassin skills from playing video games all day?"

"I didn't. My father was an expert." He stated, "But you can learn a thing or two if you're careful. Stealth, proper hiding. How to stab people in the neck and hide bodies without people noticing…"

"Ugh…I'm buying you an RPG the next time we go to the mall, alright?"

"That's fine with me, but for now, you'll have to stick with-Aw man! I got shot from behind by some thug talking to you!"

"Ha ha. Now turn that stuff off. There's something I want to talk to you about." Malin said.

Epsilon turned off the console and sat next to her on the couch."Alright, you got my attention. What's up?" He said.

Malin mumbled a bit as she tried to come up with the best way to get this across. "Wellll…I figured that now would be a good time for the two of us to talk a bit. You know, because if we're going to stay here, I think you could tell me a bit more about…you."

"Open…Open up?" Eli was a bit confused with Malin's intentions for a bit, but he realized this was one of her attempts at trying to dig into his life. It kinda bothered him how persistent she had been with the subject, but he figured it wouldn't hurt to at least hear her out.

Epsilon stared out into nowhere. "Alright, Malin, I'll bite. What do you want to know about me?"

"Your….your parents…." Her voice trailed off at the end, but Eli could easily make the words out. _That _subject again.

"If you really want to know…" Eli ran his hand through his platinum hair in a rough fashion as he started his tale. "My dad accidently shot some guy in a crime syndicate that doubled as a teen pop idol who had a rather meager fanbase. Needless to say, when his fangirls found out who did it, they weren't very happy." Eli put on his best 'sorrowful' expression as he acted as if he was suffering from the horrible memories, "I can still remember that day. My parents, cornered on the street by pre-teen girls with pocket knives, sharpened pencils and paper fans, stabbing and bludgeoning my parents to death with magazines that had his face on the cover. It still gives me flashbacks whenever I pass by his album in a music shop…"

Malin sat there quietly for the briefest of moments, trying to reconcile what the assassin just told her. "Eli?"

"Yeah?"

"That's not true isn't it?"

Eli shook his head. "Not one bit." He chuckled a bit, but Malin was clearly in no mood for his jokes.

"Why are you such an asshole?!" Her voice was loud enough that Eli was taken aback a bit, but he wasn't about to relent. "Stop being so mysterious and open up a bit more, damn it!"

Malin's rage did little to faze the assassin. "Nope." He said simply, his head turning back to the tv as if he wasn't going to go further with this discussion. "It was a nice little plan, but an assassin never reveals his personal life to people that could be considered a risk."

"A risk?!"

Five seconds later, he was clutching his face, rubbing the spot where Malin slapped him. Looking into her eyes, Eli could tell that he had inadvertently pissed her off. He stood guard and got ready for any physical act she might unleash on him. Thankfully, Malin merely stomped away; He could hear her go up the steps and into her room, the door closing with a slam that reverberated in his body.

In the silence that followed, Epsilon sat there, a look of confusion etched on his face. What the hell just happened?

\ \ \

"Are you some kinda bounty hunter or something?"

The two of them were drinking sodas as they sat on the empty parking lot outside of the warehouse.

"I'm a lot of things to many people, but I'm mostly in the business of killing people." The girl stated, "I suppose that technically, you could all me an assassin, but it wouldn't be entirely accurate, ya know?"

"YOU are an assassin? Are you one of those girls who look cute and innocent, but are secretly an insane, bloodthirsty maniac?"

KuroGenesis' face scrunched, slightly offended by his remarks. "I have no qualms about killing, but I'm not a sadistic nutjob who gets off of violence. This is just what I'm good at; why not make money off of it?" KuroGenesis reached for her phone, fiddling around till she found what she was looking for. "You know that crime boss that caused a riot in Osaka a few years back? Here's what he looked like when I got done with him."

Mozuki was slightly sickened. "Okay, okay! Get that thing out of my face already." He turned away from the gruesome picture. "Geez, I'm not that much of a sicko that I find dead bodies appealing to look at."

"Never said it was cute, but you want results, right?" KuroGenesis stated.

"Touche." Mozuki suddenly had a bit of an idea forming in his head, "What did you say your name was?"

"KuroGenesis. Ku-ro-Genesis. That's all you get from me at the moment." She teased, "And you're Mozuki?"

"Mozuki Tamashii." He said, "Anyway, I know this is a bit out of nowhere, but what do you think about the two of us teaming up?"

"Team up?"

"This is going to be a tough job, and those other guys seem fit to try and do it on their own. Teaming up could work to our advantage if we do it right."

KuroGenesis was obviously skeptical about the unexpected offer for help, but had an open enough mind that she figured it couldn't hurt. "And what about the money?" She raised an eyebrow.

"You can take it all. My family has a decent enough cashflow already, so I really don't need it." He downed the rest of his soda before chucking it to the street.

"Actually, that sounds like a plan." KuroGenesis said. "But to make sure you don't go home without some reward, so if we capture him, I'm willing to let it slip and tell you what my real name is. Deal?"

"Kind of a strange offer, but what the hell. You got a deal." They shook hands, making their partnership official.

KuroGenesis looked at her phone's clock. "I guess I'll be seeing you later then, Mozu-kun." She waved at him before turning around and speeding off.

"I'm 'Mozu-kun' now?" Mozuki said to the empty space where KuroGenesis just left. Maybe he was getting over his head, but this opportunity was just too great for him to ignore. Bringing down the mysterious assassin named Epsilon was his ticket to being immortalized as a feared figure in the crime world.

_*beep beep boop*_

Mozuki's phone went off in his pocket. Checking his messages, he discovered that KuroGenesis has already left him something.

_Forgot to tell U: hack'd ur phone and took ur nmbr, so I can call u anytime! 3 Kuro_

Mozuki sighed. This had a good chance to be a total disaster as well.

/ / /

Epsilon had distracted himself for a few hours by watching a few movies; all of them much more entertaining than the slop Malin tried to force feed him that morning. However, when it was over, he was stuck thinking about Malin and what exactly he did to make her so angry. He tried to go through his limited experience with girls as if to find something he could use, but everything came up empty. All Epsilon could do was lean back in the couch and stare up at the ceiling. Dealing with girls can be hard.

"Eli..."

Malin's voice caused him to look up. There she was; looking a bit disheveled, and eyes somewhat puffy, but the aura of anger was long gone from her, replaced by somberness and regret. "Uh…what's up?" Epsilon replied.

"…I'm sorry…" She muttered. "I guess you figured out by now, but I agreed to this mostly because I hoped that having you around all day would be a good chance to get to know you a bit better. But instead, I got frustrated and hit you."

"It's no big deal. It's not the first time I had a girl slap me in the face." He said, "But, why are you so interested in my past?"

"I thought since I got to know your sister that you'd be a bit more willing to talk about it. The whole 'trusting me' stuff and all of that." Malin sat on the couch gingerly next to him, still not wanting to look directly into his eyes. "I know this is the most cliché thing a girl like me could say to a boy, but we've known each other a short time, but I feel like I'm being pushed away from you, even if you're not trying to be mean.

And with those words, it suddenly came to him; Malin was upset because she thought Epsilon still didn't trust her. That had been her main peeve with him since they met, was his constant need to be secretive about such things all the time. He hadn't thought there was anything wrong with it, but then again, other than he had exactly two people who he was really close to, and both of them had known about his lifestyle from the beginning, and one of them was his sister. As much as he preferred to keep to himself, Eli could be a bit more understanding of Malin's intentions.

Epsilon scratched his head as he tried to come up with something interesting to say. "I suppose I am still a bit uneasy about revealing myself to you. My past isn't exactly a feel-good story of the year, to put it lightly."

Malin turned to him, "Oh, I don't want you to say anything you aren't comfortable with. I just wanted to learn more about you, that's all." She said quietly, and Epsilon suddenly felt like the biggest jerk in the world. At the very least, he could be a bit more expressive about things. "I know you're still not really that social, but…"

"That's not much of an excuse. This thing between us is a give and take kinda thing, and I've been doing a lot more taking than giving, if you catch my drift." Eli said. "You've been kind to me, despite the whole 'assassin' thing, but I think I've been taking that for granted just a little bit."

"What? Oh no, you haven't! Or at least not yet." Malin said, "Granted, there were several times I wanted to toss you out on your ass, but I'm like that with most of my guests."

Eli laughed. "Anyway, I guess there are some things I can tell you…" Eli sank back into his seat. "My childhood. How about we start with that for now?" Malin nodded earnestly, "Okay. Where to start…"

And so Epsilon humored her with some stories. He told her about his relatively sublime home life, how his mother taught him hand-to-hand combat in order to fight off bullies that had been messing with him at school and how she was often a bit clumsy when it came to cooking, how his father would often come back from missions with some absurd story about situations that happened in the middle of his trips, like having to beat down some guys who were making a fuss at a bar, and bring home souvenirs as his way of making up for the time he would be gone, how his sister used to cry a lot to the point that he wanted to move his room into the basement so he wouldn't go crazy.

It was merely minor details of his childhood, but to Malin, these things helped her to paint a better picture about the young man next to her. Epsilon seemed to have such a low view about himself sometimes, which made Malin wonder how anyone with such great parents and such a sublime childhood ended up like he was now. She brought that subject up to him, yet again, but…

"I'm sorry, but I don't really want to talk about it just yet." Eli closed his eyes, "I just-I just can't, okay?"

Malin placed her hand on his arm and she instantly felt the tension in his body. It was obviously a wound that was still quite raw to him. "I understand. I won't push you anymore."

Epsilon slowly eased up when he heard those words. "Listen, I swear to you I'll give you everything you want to know about that period of my life, but just not today." Eli said, "It's rather grim, and I don't want to kill the mood right now, but you're my friend and you deserve to know eventually."

Malin felt a small tinge of success at Eli calling her a 'friend', even if the day didn't go as well as she planned. "I'll hold you to that." She said, "Don't break your promise, or I'll hammer you into a pancake."

"And I certainly don't want that." Feeling like the situation had been resolved, Eli got up from the couch, hoping to try and find something to eat for dinner. With a quick tug that he was barely aware of, however, he was pulled back to the couch. Malin wanted more from him, apparently.

"Hold on a minute, Eli." Malin shoved him back into his seat, "There's just one more thing I have to ask you."

Eli was confused as to what else she wanted, but chose not to make a big deal out of it. "Uh…of course. What do you want?"

"Why are you so shy around girls?" It was an innocent question, but those words sent a sort of weird feeling down his spine, one that told him that he should choose his words wisely…

"Er….I'm not very good with females, unfortunately." He scratched his cheek with a finger, "That is, when I'm talking to them normally I'm usually fine. It starts getting sketchy when they become all flirty and stuff."

"So you've never even kissed a girl?"

"Is it a bad thing if I said 'no'?" Eli had no confidence in his voice whatsoever..

"Don't worry. To be perfectly honest, I've never really kissed a boy either." Malin tone was starting to be less playful and more sinister by the second. "But that's no reason that I can't start now."

"W-what?" Eli found himself in the compromising situation of having Malin slowly creep up till their faces were level. Her body was just hovering above him, and he had to work really, REALLY hard not to take a glance at what lay beyond the loose collar of her t-shirt.

"Eliiiii….Don't you want to try it?" Malin's hot breath was sapping his resistance away with each word she spoke. Eli tried to maintain a straight façade as possible, but he was losing badly.

Of everything that the young assassin had experienced in his short but full life so far, this was by far the scariest. Not only because of his general shyness towards girls, but because, in the cold, bare, relatively unused part in his subconscious, there was a voice in his head telling him that he wanted this.

"Hahaha…I'm just kidding!" Malin laughed as she got off of him, earning her a dirty look from her flushed-face friend. "Ah, don't be upset because I got you all worked up like that. It's just for fun, after all…"

"Not really my idea of 'fun', Malin." Eli sighed as his body temperature returned to normal.

"Oh shut up." Malin turned and walked towards the kitchen. "I'm going to order us some food right quick."

Malin disappeared, leaving the assassin, for about the third time that day, to stew and lament on how much of a complete pussy he was when it came to the opposite sex.

Meanwhile, Malin herself stood in the kitchen, her face a bright red as everything she had just did finally registered in her brain. _What the hell did I just almost do?!_ She slapped her cheeks to try and get her mind back in order. It was supposed to be playful teasing…right?

/ / /

Shikkoku: *Mumbles incoherently about the amount of time it took to update this story* This chapter isn't that great, but I wanted to get it out so you'd know this story isn't dead.

Okay, this is the thing: Kurai Tenshi is a total mess. The problem is that, unlike the other stories, I really had no idea where I was going with this. In a way, I still don't (though I do have more of a general idea of where this is heading in the near future, but the details behind those events changes constantly) and the plans I DID have for this is now non-existent. You know that 'Keppaku' thing? That was because it was supposed to be a two-parter. But the story I had originally planned to tie this in with for the sequel is now just gonna be its own different monster. As such, this is now just going to be 'Kurai Tenshi' from now on. Don't worry, you aren't really missing much.

Anyway, the point I'm making is that Kurai Tenshi is going to need edits. Lots of edits. And I'll be scrapping the first few of chapters and rewriting them completely. The rest of them will be edited (some quite severely), and certain plot points might be changed to make a bit more sense. Nothing mind-bendingly major, though. I'll probably won't update it again till I at least have most of them done, but I hope to have it figured out sooner than later.

As for the story going forward….

_Notes:_

_Those four guys-well, three guys and one girl-you see there? Those are going to be the focus of the next few chapters as we lead to this story's halfway point. Wondering why there's not been much fighting in a 'King of Fighters' fic? Well, no need to worry about that any longer._

_Of course, the main ones you should be concerned with are Mozuki and KuroGenesis, as they will have a huge role to play in the rest of the story._

_And of course, Kasumi, Hinako, Kandori, Alex and Tanna will play roles as well. Speaking of Kandori, his story will be revise a bit to make him much more familiar to Kasumi to prevent him from seeming forcibly shoved into the plot just for the hell of it._

So stay tuned. Remember what I said in the first chapter of this story: I am HELL-BENT on finishing Kurai Tenshi.

_Next Chapter: _When Epsilon finds out his bounty has been suspended, Malin uses that as an excuse to drag Eli out of the house. But what happens when a big, burly mountain of muscle gets in the way? Massive amounts of violence, of course.

Until next time, Sayonara.


End file.
